angry

[jaina]

You all know that I almost never talk politics on this journal. But today I'm making a special exception. From the AP:

Speaking in a ballroom just a few miles north of ground zero, Karl Rove said the Democratic party did not understand the consequences of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said Wednesday night. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Okay, in the first place, that's blatantly false. Blatantly. In the second place, that is a fucking disgusting thing to say, on SO many levels. It's crude. It's divisive. It smacks of opportunism. And did I mention the part where it's COMPLETELY UNTRUE!?

So, so angry right now. The whole mess about cutting public broadcasting funding isn't helping my mood, either.

Comments

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

feel free to mock me all you wish, nuk. doesn't really matter to me. i do notice, however, that you mention Rove's comments aren't supported by facts yet, along with every other liberal whining about his comments, fail to demonstrate that they aren't supported by fact.

quite frankly, i think Rove's comments are quite adequately supported by fact.

and if you think Guantanamo Bay is a gulag and U.S. troops are no better than Nazis, the Khmer Rouge or Stalinists, then you, quite frankly, have lost your mind.

have a pleasant weekend.

- merc

[hokie.livejournal.com]

That's a horrible misrepresentation of what Dick Durbin said, and you know it, merc. Durbin's entire point was that we're better than Nazis and we're better than Stalinists and maybe, just maybe, we should act like it, instead of having policies that show that we value human beings, because when we think about torture, it's not something we ever associate with ourselves, and it's something we just might have a problem with. It's not even an issue of "Right now, we're just like them," it's an issue of "We're acting in ways that one might associate with them and we're better than that."

Additionally, as stupid as Amnesty's word choice was, they weren't speaking literally. Is this something we can understand? Guantanamo is not literally the Soviet gulag and no one ever claimed it was.

Good lord. I have no interest in civility, per se, but can we please be honest about what we're talking about?

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

actually, no it isn't.
and, i quote: "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

so, apparently, American troops were treating the Gitmo prisoners the way those locked up by the Nazis, Khmer Rouge and Stalinists were treated.

how is that not a disgusting comparison? Durbin doesn't have to make the point that we're better than the Nazis, Stalinists and Khmer Rouge. that's freaking obvious - mainly, b/c we're not slaughtering anyone.

good Lord, if room-temperature manipulation and loud rap-music playing over a loud speaker is considered torture then everytime i go to the mall, i'm being tortured.

chained to the ground? boo-hoo.

this is what Durbin thinks people would assume is the stuff of Nazi, Khmer Rouge or Stalinist torture?

also, whether or not Amnesty Int'l was speaking literally is completely beside the point. "Gitmo is figuratively like the gulags." is still a damn stupid, careless, ignorant thing to say.

your comment, in my opinion, bears no merit.

[hokie.livejournal.com]

You're completely ignoring the "that had no concern for human beings part," the rest was throwing out examples.

See, a fair reading of the quote has it sound like a multiple choice question. Suppose you got this description without knowing its source. Would you think it described the actions of a) Nazis, b) Soviets, c) Khmer Rouge, or d) Americans? And Durbin's point was that almost nobody would choose d), even though it's the correct answer. I don't see how this is difficult. He didn't say "This is what the Nazis did, we are no different from them." He didn't say "This is the Holocaust all over again." He said "We are not different enough from these groups, because if you got this account, you would choose, rather than it having been committed by Americans, that it had been committed by some group with no respect for other human beings. But guess what? It was us. Shouldn't we be better than that?"

Good lord, spare me the manufactured outrage. Was it a stupid thing to do? Yes, because you knew what was coming? But inappropriate? Hardly. Hell, those techniques were used by the Nazis and Soviets, though the Nazis eventually found (or their leading interrogators did, anyway), that torture wasn't effective at all. How's that for irony? In any case, that's certainly not how I want my representatives acting.

As for the rest of your nonsense, I'll let other people read it for how ridiculous it is. There's a reason that position is called a "stress position." Durbin also described how the prisoners defecated themselves, how the temperatures were left for hours to be well over 100 degrees, and how they weren't given food or water for extended periods of time.

So you can go on chortling about how easy they have it, what with your privileged little existence. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Because it's from an FBI agent detailing what he referred to as abusive behavior. And yes, almost everyone this side of Rush Limbaugh does think it's abusive behavior. There's a reason that wasn't what any outrage was over.

If my comment was meritless, yours was just completely insipid and without any sort of connection to reality other than an attempt to justify the preconceived notion you'd gotten and won't change. It must be nice to not have to worry about integrity or fair readings when outrage and mockings based on strawmen will suffice.

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

good Lord, Hokie, you're a piece of work.
"the multiple choice question" of Durbin's bears no merit b/c regardless of how uncomfortable the terrorists in Gitmo are made, their treatment is nothing compared to those in the camps of any of the evil regimes he mentioned.
'fair' reading?
give me a break.
the fact that you don't find his comments inappropriate tells me all i need to know about you and your character.
guess we can just agree to despise each other. whoopee.

as for the rest of your nonsense, i'll let others read it for how ridiculous it is.

[hokie.livejournal.com]

Again, you're completely missing the point, after apparently skipping all of my response except for the multiple choice part.

I'll repeat this one more time, then add this entire exchange to the list along with others you've engaged in such as "poor people are poor because they did drugs or dropped out of school."

Durbin's point was nothing other than what the Israeli historian Avi Schlaim once wrote: "The issue isn't whether or not we are the same as the Nazis, the issue is that we aren't different enough." Now, you can agree or disagree with that all you want, but don't misrepresent the damned point in order to score some rhetorical cheap shots.

There. I'm done.

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

i disagree with that statement.

there; i'm done, too.
yipee.