Trying to make sure that I'm not being accused again of being evasive, how about if I go bullet by bullet.
If I see someone come in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt [wrapped] around [it], that guy needs to be pulled over and checked."
--Representative John Cooksey (R-Louisiana), September 17
What an idiot! But he's GOP, so what would you expect. That's how they see the world. Why complicate things with different people may have different opinions? If he looks at a small sample of people...extend it to the entire group. Anecdotal evidence is his proof. Standard conservative thinking.
"In a war on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden will either be left alive, while thousands of impoverished, frightened people are bombed into oblivion around him, or he will be killed in a bombing attack for which he seems quite prepared. But what would happen to his cool armor if he could be reminded of all the good, nonviolent things he has done? Further, what would happen to him if he could be brought to understand the preciousness of the lives he has destroyed? I firmly believe the only punishment that works is love."
--Alice Walker, The Village Voice, October 9 issue
Reparsing it: Alice says that OBL will be killed or be alive....that narrows is down! The people are already impoverished and they've been bombed in one fashion or another for two decades, so what insight are you bringing to the table, Alice? But what would happen .... is love. It sounds to me as if Alice started dropping acid in the 70's and hasn't stopped since then.
"It may have seemed meaningless at the time, but now we know why 7,000 people sacrificed their lives: So that we'd all forget how Bush stole a presidential election."
--Cartoonist Ted Rall, Philadelphia City Paper, September 27
Remote possibility that if I saw the actual cartoon, it could be funny, but I doubt it. Why does any one worry about a cartoonist? If you want me to assess what the cartoonist said as if it was a serious comment; Ted is pretty stupid. If you want me to assess it as a joke; it's a pretty poor joke.
"Six men [the heads of Viacom, Fox News Corp., Disney, Vivendi, Sony, and Time Warner-AOL] are deciding what you're seeing in film, and they own all the small companies.... Now, within reason, they let [filmmakers] do certain things, and that is far better obviously than, say, the Arabs where they don't let you do anything, and I agree it's relative. But we are in a dilemma. We have too much order.... And I think the revolt on September 11 was about order. It was about fuck you, fuck your order... And is it time perhaps to reconsider the world order? Is it time to wonder why the banks have joined the movie companies and all the corporations, and where this is all going?"
--Oliver Stone, quoted by Jeffrey Wells on Reel.com, October 10
Oliver Stone. He's the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy dude, correct? That should be a hint right there. I don't know whether to first laugh over this one or to call Oliver an idiot. I would do both, it's just a question of which one would be first. It always amazes me when people allude to the New World Order thing as if it were even possible. The US can't agree with Canada over fishing rights on salmon in the northwest and somehow, magically, the entire set of world leaders can agree on world domination under Rockefeller in the New World Order, orchestrated by black helicopters that have their designated positions indicated with the little colored dots on the back of interstate highway signs.
"In a situation like this, of course you identify with everyone who's suffering. [But we must also think about] the terrorists who are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma. It's all of our jobs to keep our minds as expansive as possible. If you can see [the terrorists] as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better."
--Richard Gere, in an interview with ABCNEWS Radio, October 10
Richard. Go back to yoga class and don't come out until your next life.
"There will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the Western domination of this planet is ended."
--Sunera Thobani, professor at the University of British Columbia, speaking at a feminist conference in Ottawa, October 1
Ok..The New World Order thing is starting to look a little more reasonable.
"Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!"
--Michael Moore, Michaelmoore.com, September 12
Tasteless, but funny. Is he a comedian?
"How we dare even prate about democracy is beyond me. Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. It's far worse than anything that occurred in the Roman empire, until the praetorian guard started to sell the principate. We're not a democracy, and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements."
--Gore Vidal, interview with the New Statesman, October 15
This one is more complicated. Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. I thought that was something that conservatives and liberals half-agreed on. Conservatives are bribed by their political contributors and Liberals are bribed by their political contributors, etc. That's a lot of bribery......That consumer advocate dude was never bribed, no political contributions.
We're not a democracy Lord, how many times have I heard that from conservatives...we're a democratic republic. That way, the will of the people can be ignored and replaced by conservative leadership.....
and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements."
Vidal, you've gone the way of conservative thought processes...you've hit on a couple of somewhat valid points [in a remote way, though you've exaggerated them beyond all reason] and you feel the need to condemn the entire system. Vidal, the world is not just black or white, there are zebras in the world and there are grays.
"Civilization is Genocide"
--banner carried by protesters in Berlin on October 8, as seen in an AP photo by Markus Schreiber
The protesters must have wanted to support two entirely different protests and were short of funds to come up with two appropriate signs. Civilization had something to do with one protest. Genocide had something to do with some other protest. But there is insufficient information to tell what they wanted to protest in either demonstration.
Now had you said that it was the very first statement in the link that you wanted comment on:
For the past two months, Idiocy Watch has been our attempt to keep up with all the dumb and outrageous things said about America and the terrorists.
I would have said, it looks like Idiocy Watch has done pretty well with their objective...and they have too much idle time on their hands along with the rest of the people that they've been quoting. On the positive side, the whole page does give one a small chuckle.
Is that an adequately comprehensive response to your query?
jttmab |
