The blame game

[Udie]

History is a funny thing and seems to me to be as worthless lately as most memories are short.  Who ever it was that said the more things change the more they stay the same was a freakin genious.  We're in a situation/war that many of us on this board, the USA and around the world saw coming for the past 8 years or so.

 We hear people say that we need to look at "why" they hate us so much.  The same people say that the US has killed hundreds of thousands of inocent Iraqi civilians with sanctions.  We hear about American made planes flown by Isreal killing inocent civilians in palestine.  Yet you never hear from the same people about the weapons inspectors kicked out of Iraq (one of the key components of the cease fire remember the war hasn't been declared "over")  You never hear from the same people about the hundreds and thousands of inocent Isreali's killed in discoe clubs or on busses or in malls.

 Some say that we brought this on ourselves, then they are barked at and labeled "traitor"  well they're not far off the mark, they just have the wrong reasoning.  Yes we brought this upon ourselves when we didn't follow through with what was stated and proven in the past.  I'd love to blame Clinton Solely but the congress and most of all the American people deserve blame too.  

 My blame is that all I really wanted for most of his 8 years was for him to be gone. Not for sex in the oval office or for lying about it at least twice under oath.  Though both of those are impeachable IMNSHO.  But for all the stuff he didn't do or stuff he did do but got away with. The American peoples blame is that either like me they wanted him gone so badly that that's all they saw or they were more interested in the market and their 401k's than the state of the world we live in.  

 The congress is the bigger part of the blame lies.  They have the power to right the wrongs done by a president.  They didn't do their jobs.  The Republicans had the "witch hunt" and the Democrats well, they just got busy destroying all the respect I had for that party.  I'm still saddened buy the farce of a hearing that John Glenn chaired, lost respect for one of my biggest heroes then    Domesticly I guess both parties did "alright"  But the Democrats drove the race card into the ground.  All the while letting Clinton totally diddly up 20+ years of successful foriegn policy when they had the power to stop him.

 Now we did get some things right in the end, I'm speaking of Serbia.  We got it right finaly after doing what should have been done when Bush was still president.  How many people had to die because of political roadkill in that war? At least we fixed it I guess.

 To this high school / college drop out, simple minded sophisticated southern country boy who grew up in the big city   it would seem that NOBODY has learned from the history of the past 100 years.  Throughout the 90's I would tell friends that this is what the 20's must have felt like. Excess in every form, sex, drugs, rock and roll, money and power are abundant while the giant sleeps.  But nowhere is there any responsibility.  That seems to come after the decodent years in the form of world wide war.  How many wars are going on right now?   Well there's a responsible person in charge now.  If things go wrong I'm sure he will take the blame.


 There's more I want to say, but I'm starting to ramble so I'll post more later.

[Sandman]

You sound as if you believe that this is still a democracy in this country...

[10Bears]

Yes! that eight year nightmere of peace and prosperity is finally over Thank God!

[Toad]

Unfortunately, the bill for buying peace by hosing a few cruise missiles off into empty camps in Afghanistan has now come due.... the "interest cost" was two buildings in NYC.

[fd ski]

Udie, could you please post examples of 20 years of successful policy that clinton messed up ?

As for the rest of your post, you're improving  

You ask why some people were ( and we know who you have in mind   ) don't post about "other" side of the story.
Well, answer is very simple. Because everyone KNOWS that side. Any news you turn on you'll find that info, radio/TV/Websites so on, it's all over the place.
By posting the "other" perspective, i guess we're tring to make a small contribution to the "balanace" of things.

Some misinterpret it for sympathy for the other side. It's not.
I believe that Hussain should have been killed when we were there the first time , heck, when I was there.
( please note that i will refrein from using this to take cheap shots at administarions )
Statement above doesn't remove the fact that kids are dying of starvation over there.
Yes, iraqi kids, but still, "unpolitical, couldn't care less about Saddam or weapons" kids.
It bothers be when news never bothers to show a darn thing on a subject, therefore i'll take it upon myself to remind some of the other side of the wall, while i might not definatelly agree with it.

Toad, i always been under impression that you were above this level of smeer. Rip posts things like that  

How about this one, WWII was a interest payment for George Washington not scratching his bellybutton on his 14th birthday ?

[Jochen]

Great post Ski!

[Toad]

It's no smear, Ski. IIRC, even Bin Laden said that response merely confirmed his assessment that the US had no will.

Those wonderful eight years   were poll driven by someone with their eyes ever on the fickle windsock of public opinion.
Not always the best way to chart a course, IMO.

[batdog]

Arent the sanctions on Iraq UNITED NATIONS based? Errr... so that means the world community is killing people in Iraq correct?

xBAT

[Ripsnort]

Medical supplies have never been sanctioned to Iraq.  How people think the world is responsible for killing Iraqi's is laughable, and the fact that they have a dictorship that controls all the imports that do go into the country, and the fact that he used chemical weapons on his own people, well, if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by batdog:
Arent the sanctions on Iraq UNITED NATIONS based? Errr... so that means the world community is killing people in Iraq correct?

xBAT

yes, but that's beside the point as it doesn't make the US out to be the terrible one to the bleeding heart libs.

how does Iraq manage to buy/install state of the art Chinese radar/missile systems while they can't feed their own?? Sounds like they have their priorities bellybutton backwards to me ...

don't worry, I'm sure if we start bombing the piss out of Iraq, we'll drop grub on them too just like we are in Afgan .. sheesh.   what a PC way to run a war..

Don't you just love the "bridge to the 21st century" that crack pot built for us for the last 8 years ??!!

[Udie]

ARRRRGGG I should have saved the post it was only about 1/2 done when I got tired of typing.

 I don't have time at work today to debate or anything like that so I'll have to wait until tonight to finish  

[miko2d]

Udie,
 Love your post. You are right in your description of the facts.

 Now to the point where you are wrong.
 You are wrong in your attempt to define the cause: "it would seem that NOBODY has learned from the history of the past 100 years".

 From that statement alone it is obvious to me that your own historical view is very limited.

 If you read history - preferably from the works of professionals - strategists, politicians, economists - rather then historians, you will see that there was a lot of history before the last 100 years - about 5000 to be precise - and they encountered much the same problems and failed to learn from them every year over the last 5000.

 Even (more or less representative) democracy was successfully tried on the vast scale in Greece, Rome, Novgorod, and Poland-Lithuania and other places and was eventually lost through ineptness of participants.

 Most history that is being taught everywhere  is pretty much false or misleading as to the causes of things - as it requires some specialized knowlege to understand. Also, the main attention is paid to real or imagined victories and successes - which are nowhere as good for learning as study of errors. "Economist" article "History Lessons" of Nov 3 about teaching history in Britain tells it better then I could.

 So I confidently conclude that in general, humanity does not have long enough attention span to derive any lessons from history. Some indicidual people cam make great use of it, but not humanity in general, at least not in the democratic context where mass stupidity and ignorance is bound to prevail over exceptional foresight and knowlege.

 That is pretty much the law of nature - with the best teaching of history possible only a small fraction of people is capable to understand and use the knowlege and exercise foresight based on the knowlege. No more then 10-15 percent to be exact.
 As it happens now, out of those top 10-15 percent of people capable of understanding (IQ 115+), most are not interested in history or not getting the right education, etc.
 That is the primary reason why free market system works while democracy fails - free market allows the few capable people to raise to the top to make a difference while democracy prevents it.
 In economy a genius does not have to explain his ideas to masses of dumb people to get their approval for some action. At most he has to persuade a few bankers to loan him the money.

 So you may as well spare your breath and stop expecting any improvement in public policy (except chance election of a capable person) and make your personal provisions for handling the concequenses.

 Of course the scientists may discover the workings of the brain some day and find a way to ensure minimum IQ of 115 for the whole population - then things can become different.

 P.S. IQ 115 is not the important value - you can use SAT score or any other value - the result will be the same. Curently only about 15 percent of the population is capable of getting through college (real college, not welfare substitute). You can hardly expect someone not capable of graduating from college and without knowlege of at least the college education to be qualified to make decisions on how to run the country - otherwise what is the point of intelligence and education?

 miko

[Gunthr]

Wow. The topic of Clinton sure does polorize people.

You can't deny that this sexual addict brought shame to the office of the President. Or that he harmed his political party as well. Or that he is responsible for educating a generation of 7 year olds about blow jobs. Or that he lied under oath and was impeached and disbarred for it. I guess it all depends on what you expect from a president. Many people do not buy the notion that Clinton can take credit for the global forces that gave us relative peace and prosperity during his time in office.

[Raubvogel]

Originally posted by Gunthr:

You can't deny that this sexual addict brought shame to the office of the President.

I'm by no means a Clinton supporter, but "sexual addict"? If wanting to get a hummer from a young "pleasantly plump" chick and then hoping no one finds out about it makes you a sexual addict...well, I better go find me a treatment program.  

[fd ski]

Originally posted by Gunthr:
Many people do not buy the notion that Clinton can take credit for the global forces that gave us relative peace and prosperity during his time in office.

And many people don't buy the story that all presidents before and after Slick Willy were saints.
Only difference is the scale of witch hunts, in Cliton's times they exceeded everyone's expectations.

There are documented cases of presidents who lied directly and indirectly. Some presidents had more bellybutton in WH then Clinton even dreamed off. Just in the past it was "his and his family" problem... till it became convinient to drag president though the mud for political purposes.