Could it be happening?!

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, she's doesn't exactly seem or sound like a dove, so if you're going to divide democratic hawk from neocon I don't actually see a terrible lot of functional difference.

Obama isn't a dove. How many invasions has he ordered?

The neocons love to wave that 'see he's just like us' banner, but he isn't. The neocons equate 'Iran is researching nuclear weapons' with 'invade Iran', and we aren't. They wanted boots on the ground in Libya, and we didn't. They opposed withdrawing troops from Iraq, but we did. They oppose withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, but we have. They want boots on the ground in Syria, and there aren't. They wanted boots on the ground in Georgia, and we didn't. They want boots on the ground in Ukraine, and we aren't.

I'm not dividing 'democrat hawks' from neocons because they are democrats. I'm dividing hawks in general from neocons. I consider most of our military interventions to be 'revoltingly necessary', and I think most 'hawks' feel about the same. I also think most 'doves' are playing on the 'revolting' to score points, but are probably just as aware of the 'necessary' as anyone else...and at the very least are contributing to the necessary just as much as anyone...because they are consuming the resources the rest of the world gives us, and those gifts aren't being given because we're just so popular.

 

[Farm Boy]

Alright, so the difference is one category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places and stays invested. The other category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places but then gets tired and comes home and ends ongoing investments from previous administrations?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Alright, so the difference is one category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places and stays invested. The other category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places but then gets tired and comes home and ends ongoing investments from previous administrations?

Not exactly.

One category of politician does what is necessary to keep our standard of living where it is, even if it involves defending the Riyadh oil fields and thus thwarting a populist uprising against a despotic monarchy that was really not unlike our own revolution against British rule.

Another category of politician recognizes that that action, and others like it, have consequences, and people who hate us for having done it have to be dealt with violently on a fairly regular basis.

Another category of politician thinks that rather than deal with them violently if we just start overthrowing governments at random sooner or later a government friendly to ours will spontaneously spring into existence and deal with them for us, while not realizing that all that government overthrowing is actually producing a lot more people who hate us.

 

[Farm Boy]

So the same basic reality with softer words based on the presumed motivations of some of them? I'm sympathetic, but not impressed.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So the same basic reality with softer words based on the presumed motivations of some of them? I'm sympathetic, but not impressed.

Not about words...more about actions. We are involved in two actual invasions. They are the only two actual invasions we have been involved in for the past several decades. They both occurred when genuine neocons held the executive branch of government. No coincidence.

 

[Cutlass]

Alright, so the difference is one category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places and stays invested. The other category of politician ensures we get involved in killing people in a variety of places but then gets tired and comes home and ends ongoing investments from previous administrations?

I think the real difference is that a hawk may frequently see a need to use military force. Maybe even excessively see it. But they see it as a necessary evil. More, it's realpolitic. And they see it as a means to an end. That is, it's a view of the world as a harsh place, where you can only put your own nation's best interest first. And that there's no real choice but to do so. Do onto others before they do onto you.

Neocons are a whole different breed. The neocon does not see the world in the 'realpolitic' sense. That is, they don't see the real world at all. They make up a view of the world, and then say "why doesn't every person in the world see the world in the same way that we just made up minutes ago??!??!!!!?!?" Not only are they not seeing the real world at all, and it's not that they are seeing a differing view of the real world, but rather that they are not seeing a view of the real world. Their world is a fantasy. In their fantasy, if we just knock off Saddam Hussein, then we'll have an Iraq where all the various interests join the Republican Party.

 

[bhsup]

But does it really make any difference in the end? Clinton voted to go into Iraq. She supported the same actions the neo-cons wanted.

(I am not criticizing or praising for that in this thread, mind you, just pointing it out.)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But does it really make any difference in the end? Clinton voted to go into Iraq. She supported the same actions the neo-cons wanted.

(I am not criticizing or praising for that in this thread, mind you, just pointing it out.)

Yeah it does. Given that the public was swarming for the war in Iraq, and we have a representative government there wasn't much doubt how any representative in congress was going to vote. My congressman's office had calls coming in at over fifty to one. If he had voted against he'd have been recalled.

But how did the public become so incensed about it? The answer to that traces directly to having avowed neocons in control of the defense and intelligence apparatus of the United States, up to and including the Presidency.

Why invade Iraq? They have WMD. Says who? The President, on national television. Well how does he know? Head of the NSA says so, head of the CIA says so, Secretary of Defense says so.

But he appointed all of them, and they all were on record throughout the ten years previously saying that Iraq should be invaded under any circumstance that could remotely support it, because invading Iraq, in itself, was too good a thing to be left undone. Why does he trust them? Because he agrees with them and they are telling him what he wants to hear anyway.

It is critically important to understand that the neocons believe they know what needs to be done and will manipulate data and public opinion as necessary if given the chance.

 

[Farm Boy]

Not only are they not seeing the real world at all, and it's not that they are seeing a differing view of the real world, but rather that they are not seeing a view of the real world. Their world is a fantasy. In their fantasy, if we just knock off Saddam Hussein, then we'll have an Iraq where all the various interests join the Republican Party.

You really think that's a Republican thing? True, the Republicans screwed it up the most spectacularly in the last to big tickets but come on.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You really think that's a Republican thing? True, the Republicans screwed it up the most spectacularly in the last to big tickets but come on.

He didn't say it's a republican thing. It's a neocon thing, and the neocons happen to be in the Republican party. They aren't anywhere near being all of the Republican party, but since a lot of the top people in the RNC were put there by their last great success, GWBush, the neocons do have a lot of power.

But this:

In their fantasy, if we just knock off Saddam Hussein, then we'll have an Iraq where all the various interests join the Republican Party.

That really was the neocon fantasy, remember? We're going to liberate Iraq and the people will welcome us with open arms? Ring any bells?

 

[Hygro]

Project for a New American Century. It was spelled out for everyone to see. Didn't work as intended.

 

[Farm Boy]

He didn't say it's a republican thing. It's a neocon thing, and the neocons happen to be in the Republican party. They aren't anywhere near being all of the Republican party, but since a lot of the top people in the RNC were put there by their last great success, GWBush, the neocons do have a lot of power.

But this:



That really was the neocon fantasy, remember? We're going to liberate Iraq and the people will welcome us with open arms? Ring any bells?

Alright, so we've talked a lot, and now we're back to Clinton voting for the neocon position in the Iraq War. Only ya'll think the motivations behind that neocon vote might be better than why a neocon would cast that neocon vote. Sounds like the normal two-party derpolitics to me.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

brrr Clinton. Dat voice.

Can't you guys just force Morgan Freeman to run?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Alright, so we've talked a lot, and now we're back to Clinton voting for the neocon position in the Iraq War. Only ya'll think the motivations behind that neocon vote might be better than why a neocon would cast that neocon vote. Sounds like the normal two-party derpolitics to me.

We are stuck with two party politics. The only thing you can count on both parties agreeing to every time are rules that prevent a third party from challenging them. So what people have to do to make the structure we are stuck with work is look at what group within each party controls it at the moment.

The Democratic party at the moment is controlled by the pragmatists. They want social justice, exemplified by single payer health care, but rather than be marginalized and accomplish nothing they will compromise to get something done, like a universal coverage plan based on a republican party model. The pragmatists took over the party machinery under Bill Clinton, because no one has more power over the party than their own sitting president. Obama beat Hillary in the primaries by demonstrating he could be just as pragmatic, and the pragmatists have an even better grip now.

The Republican party at the moment is breaking down. The leadership is completely in thrall to the GWBush era neocons, who so totally lost credibility that they can be challenged from anywhere. Instead of the usual process, where a coalition forms and moves the strongest faction into the lead, there is such a vacuum that every little splinter group thinks they can challenge the neocons on their own and take over. The next republican candidate might be a wild eyed religionist, or a roll back economics two centuries blast from the past. Or the failure to form a coalition against them might allow the neocons to make yet another run in hopes that their total failure is far enough in the past to be forgotten.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think if the pragmatists want certain things, but vote with the neocons on their big tickets, it's a pipe dream and fuzzy bunnies to put such emphasis on what we think they want in their heart of hearts. Might as well just skip the donkeys and elephants and skip straight to Cthulhu.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think if the pragmatists want certain things, but vote with the neocons on their big tickets, it's a pipe dream and fuzzy bunnies to put such emphasis on what we think they want in their heart of hearts. Might as well just skip the donkeys and elephants and skip straight to Cthulhu.

Nobody has 'voted with the neocons' since 2008. The neocons were completely disgraced, their deceptions revealed, and their results writ large. The only hazard they present is that they have somehow managed to still wield a lot of power within the republican party...but hopefully they are still not electable in a general election.

 

[Farm Boy]

I see precious little difference worth being excited about.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I see precious little difference worth being excited about.

Invade other countries...don't invade other countries.

Choose.

 

[Farm Boy]

Somalia, Libya, Bosnia, Somalia, drones, Vietnam, whatever next year, whatever the year following that, I think you're offering a false sense of hope and change with that particular choice.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Somalia, Libya, Bosnia, Somalia, drones, Vietnam, whatever next year, whatever the year following that, I think you're offering a false sense of hope and change with that particular choice.

I think you are ignoring the fact that the only two invasions we have participated in for decades have been orchestrated by the neocons...so the choice is actually available...

Invasions, or no invasions...choose.

I'm not claiming that 'no invasions' is equal to unicorns and rainbows for all. 'No invasions' brings with it all the same crap that comes with 'invasions'...but it does leave out the invasions.