Secular Talk: Rachel Maddow Crushes War Hawks

[WhoIsNumberNone]

Rachel Maddow appeared on The Daily Show this Wednesday to discuss her documentary which will be airing on MSNBC this Thursday evening, titled Why We Did It, which examines what the real motivations of the Bush administration were for invading Iraq..

[Dustlawyer]

1. Show this to a Fox News RW nut and their brains turn off!

It's like they cannot be bothered to go back in time unless it is to the 1980's and Reagan. Then they start with, "... Well Obama..."

[NCcoast]

2. What's shocking to me is how everyone continues to look at this from the wrong angle

The neocons believe in a ruling class and that that ruling class may employee 'noble lies' to achieve their goals. Iraq was a success from that point of view. The neocons were able to sell the American people on supporting an illegal war of aggression. They took the second largest cache of oil on earth by force of arms by invading a sovereign country. They got to move our bases out of Saudi Arabia, aiding that backwards monarchy. And they got to end any attempt by Saddam to trade oil in euros. They also got to siphon off all those lovely tax dollars from the war and reconstruction plus the future contracts when oil production returned to normal.

We have to stop talking about them in terms right and wrong as if they were ever concerned about being right in our eyes. They lied to accomplish their goals and they're given opportunities to continue lying so they can continue to achieve the goals of the corporate oligarchy in the future. In order to deal with them we have to see them for what they are: Liars. They're not stupid, they're snake oil salesmen, they're the PR department for the real powers that be. Does a con man care if you disrespect him after he's made off with your money? They met their geopolitical objectives and they made bank. And no one has gone to jail. The mission really was accomplished.

[bigmonkey]

3. ^This

Structurally, they were the winners. It was an unalloyed success from their point of view. Arguing about how "irrational" or "immoral" the RW might be is often entirely beside the point.
"Does a con man care if you disrespect him after he's made off with your money?" Why can't more people see this?

[freshwest]

4. This is why I tell people to stop calling them stupid or berate them for mistakes. It worked well,

people believe no one would do such a thing, and are amazed at their pride in what they did. They pulled it off, it's as much a success as any raid by a gang of pirates.

[Malteil]

10. Another point...

the fact that both parties are bought and in the hands of corporations. It makes the little people, us, feel like we have a say when we get to choose between the lesser of two evils.

[freshwest]

11. For that mindset, there's always Rand. He'll eliminate the middle man, you'll be pleased to know.

Perhaps you should discuss that with EarlG, as he doesn't agree with that mindset:



Nor does Bill Maher:

When you say:

10. Another point... the fact that both parties are bought and in the hands of corporations. It makes the little people, us, feel like we have a say when we get to choose between the lesser of two evils.

I don't believe you made a point there, period. You just repeated the mantra.

Obviously, I do see a difference and not as much corruption as those who use that excuse to depress the vote by sullying those of us who have been long involved on the precinct level, and seen the public close up and in our faces. Politics is a rough trade, and it costs a lot personally.

My Democratic elected reps are on OpenSecrets as not having taken corporate, or even union monies, only accepting small donations.

They manage to win with razor thin margins, against millions of dollars being poured in for the GOP candidates and their corporate causes. Here my representatives got outspent:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18801-monsanto-spends-millions-to-defeat-washington-gmo-labeling-initiative

And the corporations always support the GOP in elections - it's a myth that the parties are getting parity, or both doing the will of corporations, when it is the basic philosophy of the GOP that corporatism is good and that 'government should be run like a business.'

Yes, for all their cronies, and even, in the case of Cantor and others that can be researched at OpenSecrets and other such sites, their own personal enrichment. That is the type of American they actually believe in and they are not ashamed of it as it has been the way of the plutocrats since long before the Roman Empire, which they really loved.

Their Libertarian branch really love some Greek philosophers, and quote them widely to give creedence to their rants, never taking into context that their society was built on slavery, conquest and they were living at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, the 'leisure class.' They called those taken in war, slaves and women to not be spiritually fit to have any say in their own lives, but were from birth defined to be servants and tools.

That is not American thinking, it is not in the papers of the founders of the USA, who knowing classic literature decided that all were created equal and were still having to deal with their own class of plutocrats, the most vicious form of corporations of the day, plantation owners. So they were not perfect, nothing is, but it's the philosophy that is at the root of parties that will give the results, good or bad.

Democrats don't play the games the GOP does, if they do, the party tosses them out. Obama is not a corporate stooge, but fighting a real life circumstance of millions of citizens who have been disenfranchised, others who disenfranchised themselves with cynicism, a media that is the mouthpiece of rightwing billionaires who are extremely corporatist, and those who know exactly how dangerous Obama is to their interests and smear him daily.

A recent example of Karl Rove:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014695448

That is one party's vision for America. Not mine. You may put me on your list of Democratic Party partisan hacks or Obama cheerleaders, it's up to you. My conclusions of these conflicts are not the same as yours.

My reps work to protect us and stop wars, discrimination and destruction of the safety net, as frayed as it is by people who don't vote or do nothing but degrade those in office as if being cynical is going to ever change a thing.

I googled and have read most of your posts, except one you deleted. You seem reasonable but now appear in the same mindset that stayed home and created the horrible Tea Party majority, despite all proofs that the media distorted what was being done by Obama from 2009 until they took over. It was some wildly liberal stuff he was doing then, to the cat calls of the right and then the left for actions of obstruction that was planned the month before his inauguration.

The Tea Party majority may not have hurt you, as a former Mormon, Navy veteran, etc. but a lot of us have a lot to lose and giving up is not an alternative for us. Those who think the NSA is the only issue are not suffering what some of us have and will continue to suffer from a GOP majority.

You might give this a read:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11873185

We are facing in your face discrimination and denial of human rights for being the 'wrong' gender, orientation, religion or color to those in power and many who seek it, and many who deny it here at DU, too.

Those who have not been mandated to suffer object rape by the state and be denied the right to vote and the like, can afford to look at it all with a jaded eye and not care as they haven't yet experienced it.

So different people will regard such differently. You are okay with me FWIW, but on this you are singing for the wrong choir when you say that, IMO.



Peace Out.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

7. In his "Against Lying," Augustine of Hippo, circa 410, considered the question

"Is it morally acceptable to tell a lie in furtherance of a good cause?" He said no, for two basic reasons. First, he viewed lying as unacceptable under just about all circumstances. Second, when (not if, when) the people who have been lied to discover that they have been lied to, they will doubt the goodness of the cause. After all, if you have to lie about it to make it look good, how good can it be?

[beerandjesus]

9. +1

Great post!

I would add that, thanks to groups like the so-called "tea party", they have not only avoided responsibility for their crimes but now have an army out their arguing that their slash-and-burn plutocracy is somehow moral.

The Democrats, fortunately, are beginning to push back, but with nowhere near the force required.

[zebonaut]

5. Join the Republican Party Extinction Project Today

Let them go the way of the Dinosaurs they are

[delrem]

6. Rachel isn't entirely clear eyed.

I like Rachel and have followed her since I discovered her speaking on Air America.

But consider how she projected Obama's Libyan intervention
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/changing-the-narrative-rachel-maddow-praises-obama-on-diplomacy-in-libya/

In this clip Rachel focuses on matters of style, not substance. Her opening point is on a matter of style. I don't buy that line.

I haven't bought any of her lines where she interacts with Richard Engel, who I give the prize for most embedded of embedded liars in US MIC embedded "journalism".

[polynomial]

8. Being ahead of the curve

In this case an historical moment to understand a position in Democracy today is a paradox in discovery. That video displays the path America is tracing, the paradigm of the fugue state our cultural ride is taking.

Especially the Republican composers in Journalism, that part of America’s mainstream media has exhausted their delusiveness as we all realize the outrageous abuse of a political party that is the drum and bugle corps that is nothing more than a swindling money game. The Iraq war hoax is loaded with patriotic legislation that decorates the swindle further glorified with commercial bumper stickers, cable advertisements, to promote freedom and liberty via the industrial military complex.

The mainstream media are the majorettes with show men ship that manipulates the technology advantage for the few. Twenty four hours every day cowering America into poverty.

These are intention times nothing random here given through an ongoing parade of lies deception and cover ups. Ironically, with hubris that is hard to conceive at than any other time in history America is badgered with baton twirling whistle blowing bias message changing stories all the time while no one goes to jail.

But for the common citizen to be afforded the opportunity to whistle blow, exercise their first amendment to submit a grievance and then be condemned shows the basic classic Republican/ Democratic sociopathic leadership we the people have to endure and change so help me God.