Websters defines Plagiarism as: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source intransitive[/b] verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
He isnt a anti-war voice, he's just a google-news search engine pre-programmed for "anti-war".
Websters defines Plagiarism as: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source intransitive[/b] verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
He isnt a anti-war voice, he's just a google-news search engine pre-programmed for "anti-war".
My, all that stickling for detail then this:
"he isn't a[/b] anti-war voice"
Can I get a ruling from the grammar police?
The spelling police have taken jurisdiction in this thread. They're getting their rubber truncheons and battery cables out....
Outing a plagiarist is thirsty work. Its been a long news cycle here on the strut and we've all been through a lot. Motown's fall from grace; once a "prominent anti-war voice" now revealed as a plagiarist and a fraud has been a shock to us all and I know that we are all feeling dissapointed and let down, but it just goes to show you. When somebody tries to present some anti-american argument and back it up with a lot of fancy facts, it probably means that he's a plagiarist.
but it just goes to show you. When somebody tries to present some anti-american argument and back it up with a lot of fancy facts, it probably means that he's a plagiarist.
Outing a plagiarist is thirsty work. Its been a long news cycle here on the strut and we've all been through a lot. Motown's fall from grace; once a "prominent anti-war voice" now revealed as a plagiarist and a fraud has been a shock to us all and I know that we are all feeling dissapointed and let down, but it just goes to show you. When somebody tries to present some anti-american argument and back it up with a lot of fancy facts, it probably means that he's a plagiarist.
I can't believe I just read those entire 11 pages...
Sabadabada,
After reading this mess, it seems to me that you are the Rush Limbaugh of Soul Strut. By that I mean it is a mystery to me if YOU even believe what you write. I think you are just trying to stir up shit. Your insistence that Mowtown is a fraud is a pathetically transparent way of avoiding the work it would take to refute his WELL RESEARCHED[/b] post. You now know the sources. He told you. Go read them and present an argument refuting the facts. If this is too much work for you, or you just don't feel like it then fess up like an adult. Instead, you choose to malign Motowon as a FRAUD[/b] and a PLAGARIST[/b]. Your righteous indignation at his message board posting ethics are really sad, and again, very transparent.
You sir, are the fraud, and ethically, it is you who are suspect.
This is not about Right vs. Left. Vitamin's posts, while reflecting a more conservative view, are still welll-thought out, and well written arguments. I have really enjoyed some of the political debates between Motown and Vitamin, and I have learned more from thier exchanges then I ever do in POLITICAL[/b] forums. We don't need to agree, we just need to communicate with a modicum of manners. Debate is healthy! It is exercise for the brain.
Motown is doing the heavy lifting here and you, Sabadabada, are just calling names and it is not a good look.
He pukes up all this stuff he's copied from other places without citing any reference and says "this is something I've been working on for a while" and all of you drool over it "oh - great job, how insightful, can you send it to me as a word document?"
The jealousy factor.
In the end I'm the one that should be taken seriously because at least my words are my own.
The nobody listens to me factor.
I did warn you to footnote that long article you wrote the day you posted it
The frustrated authority figure factor.
9/11 was more Clinton's fault then Bush; Katrina was more Nagen and Blanco's fault; Iraq was authorized by Congress so there is plenty of blame to go around; Wiretaps/Public Surveillance/Patriot Act - Legal; Corporate collusion is nothing new, in fact most of it that is shaking out now occured in the 90's; Torture - prove it, U.S. specifically rejected Articles of Geneva Conventions pertaining to "personal dignity"; Iran - deserves it if anybody does and Bush has given Turtle Bay every oportunity to live up to its resolutions; The economy is booming.
If you accept Sab's definition of the term, it???s fair to say Motown plagiarises. However, I don't think Sab's definition is reasonable in the context of soulstrut, not because "it's just a messageboard", but because our level of discourse doesn't require citing sources. Motown posts his research, we read if it we choose, and move on. Generally, no one engages his longer reports in any meaningful way--Sab certainly doesn't--and so there's little need for Motown to adhere to basic rules of scholarly or journalistic writing. Why should he bother? That being said, Sab is right; if any of us wanted to investigate the reliability of motown's research we couldn't because he provides no sources. It would only take some internal citations.
I'm not denigrating Motown's contributions. I think his is a voice of reason and I respect how thoroughly he engages important issues. I have a lot of admiration for anybody who reads widely about anything.
I rarely cite sources or foot note stuff. Why should I? This is goddamn Soulstrut!
goddamn Soulstrut indeed. you little fucker, sabadasabada. I'm sure you don't know who I am because bullshit like this is why I stopped posting here and ALMOST stopped reading this site entirely. for a while, I still lurked like a motherfucker, but when I realized that most of the time it's not worth my time, I stopped lurking like a motherfucker and just lurked like a lurker should, to wit, occasionally. (lurkers, take fucking note. if you're here all the time and not posting, what the fuck are you doing here? jerking off? laughing?)
As an occasional lurker, there's still people who I like and respect on this site whom I "know" from when I was a frequent contributor. So when I see their names at the end of a thread, i usually click on it to see what the thread is about with the expectation that the poster in question is going to provide a thoughtful contribution to this goddamn place, the likes of which made me like it so much in the first place.
Since I don't give much of a shit about this place anymore, I'm going to go ahead and name names. The people whose shit I check when I come around here are (in no particular order):
Every one of those assholes does something more than esnipe when they post in this place. And every one of them does something elemental to participating in a virtual community like this: THINKS BEFORE THEY POST (sometimes jinx74 doesn't think, but that's usually pretty funny, so he stays). Once upon a time, I urged everyone here to think before they post and someone accused me of being all hoity toity dicksniffing or something like that. Bottom line is this place would be better if everyone took a second to think about what their contribution is before they make their contribution. Are you advancing the fucking ball or just kicking sand in someone's face? And if you're just kicking sand in someone's face, what the fuck are you doing? don't you know it's the goddamn internet? sit down. sack down. smack down.
You've been added to the very short list of people whose shit I NEVER check when I come around here and only don't "ignore this user" due to some basic sense that it stifles freedom of expression which i still respect enough to endure some immature petty nonsense like this entire misplaced ad hominem on motown67. You have to really engage in some repeated acts of utter bullshit to wind up on my shit list, but with this fake ass avoid the issue diatribe against motown67, you've done it. you're there. congratufuckinglations asswipe.
So the heart of the issue. Your panties are wadded against your sphincter because you think Motown67, a public school teacher in Oakland, CA, has passed himself off as a fake before god and soulstrut because he uses INFORMATION from GENERALLY CREDIBLE SOURCES without attribution, though when he is quoting directly he uses quotation marks. Your latest bullshit stance is that you can't engage with motown67 since you don't know where he's deriving his information. if the underlying factual information that forms the basis for his opinion is factually accurate (and I have yet to see a claim that it is not), does it matter what the source is? does it really prevent you from effectively engaging with the material issue? (VALERIE LOVES ME!)
See if it were me and I had the misfortune to disagree with Motown67 and I believed his stance was bullshit, i would begin by saying, "Motown67, you are full of shit and here's why. What you claim to happen didn't happen in the way you said it happened. As a matter of fact, the alleged NSA briefing in april 2001 was merely a handoff of paper with some words on it and as you know, the president can't read more than a paragraph a day." Whatever you want to say, but make your point and back it up. No matter of sourcehorsing can undermine your point if you make it and you have done your legwork to support it.
so you and rockadelic feel put upon because you're both on some kneejerk support the war on terror fuck a constitutional right torture ride that is currently taking us down the spiderhole with Saddam Hussein's shadow. At some point, I (and apparently the majority of the nitwits on soulstrut) just fundamentally disagree with you about the nature and exercise of democracy. My view is that the president is acting as a law unto himself without regard to the consequences of his actions, either domestically or internationally. warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil is illegal and unconstitutional, has been for centuries. (You can bet that George Washington would rather have Martha burn his wooden teeth than allow for the executive to spy on the citizenry - that's some King George III star chamber bullshit that led them to revolt in the first fucking place.) And don't get me started on torture. this President believes that torture should be acceptable to pursue information. And if you don't think it's torture, ask our friend from Canada who was snatched out of JKF airport and held incommunicado and tortured for a year if it was torture. he'll let you know straightaway (and then ask his family how that time was when he just vanished into torturously thin air - ungodly awful in my imagination). Or ask the poor suckers at Abu Ghraib, the ones that lived to tell.
So if you wonder why people are pissed, just imagine your husband disappearing for a year, thinking that he's been kidnapped or killed or left you or whatever you think (did anyone see the upside of anger? I thought it was a pretty sweet movie - the husband she hated for leaving her turned out to be dead the whole time - yeah I just gave away the ending to the three assholes who are still reading this - deal with it suckers) and then finding out that he was snatched out of the airport in the world's greatest democracy and defender of freedoms at home and abroad, held incommunicado for two weeks, then flown to Jordan and taken by car to Syria (a state sponsor of terrorism according to our esteemed government) and tortured for information that he never had in the first place. doesn't that piss you off at least a little? It chafes me to the fucking nub.
don't expect a follow up to this post. i've said my peace and will now return to hiding. Or maybe I won't. but this whole goddamn mess emerged because you would rather attack motown67 for being well-researched than defend your position. I think that's pathetic.
Peace, JRoot
PS there are some people who aren't named on my upright soulstrut citizen's brigade who I do check for on soulstrut because I know them in the world and/or they usually make me laugh. You know who you are. And if you think you are, you are.
If you accept Sab's definition of the term, it???s fair to say Motown plagiarises. However, I don't think Sab's definition is reasonable in the context of soulstrut, not because "it's just a messageboard", but because our level of discourse doesn't require citing sources. Motown posts his research, we read if it we choose, and move on. Generally, no one engages his longer reports in any meaningful way--Sab certainly doesn't--and so there's little need for Motown to adhere to basic rules of scholarly or journalistic writing. Why should he bother? That being said, Sab is right; if any of us wanted to investigate the reliability of motown's research we couldn't because he provides no sources. It would only take some internal citations.
I'm not denigrating Motown's contributions. I think his is a voice of reason and I respect how thoroughly he engages important issues. I have a lot of admiration for anybody who reads widely about anything.
Danno,
Just wanted to say that if anyone, besides sabadoodoo, asks for my sources I will gladly provide them. In the Iraq thread when Fatback asked for footnotes, I told him I didn't have the time given the length of the piece I wrote, but I did provide a list of everything that I used. If people want the sources for the piece in this thread that I wrote in response to sab I'll provide that as well.
You have basically summed up my general feelings about why I don't cite sources or provide footnotes. (Footnotes especially just seem to be a ridiculous requirement when writing something for this forum.) In certain circumstances all of these are necessary parts to maintain your credibility and I've followed those when called for in professional writings I've done out in the "real world", but besides sabadoodoo, I think everyone has figured out that I am researching and looking up articles and such when writing long pieces (using direct quotes with " " being an obvious sign to people) so I've never bothered to provide notation on them.
Finally, I'd just like to say this. Sabadoodoo, please let me know when and how I can get you this hot and bothered and your panties in a bunch up your ass again. I would really like to do this again, in fact, several times. I am really enjoying this whole show of indiganation and outrage on your part.
You did not cite your sources for the information about the man snatched from JFK and sent to be tortured. PLAGARIST!
Allow me to be of assistance. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust in case anyone is dumb enough to go head up with JRoot; think twice.
Is it possible the United States sent an innocent man out of the country to be tortured?
That's the disturbing question at the heart of a case that may reveal a secret side of the war on terrorism -- one that the government does not want to talk about.
It involves an accusation that the justice department sent a man from the U.S. to Syria to be interrogated and tortured.
The man making the claim is a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was taken into custody, under suspicion of being connected with al Qaeda, while changing planes in New York.
Now, Maher Arar tells Correspondent Vicki Mabrey about what became his year in hell, which began when federal agents stopped him for questioning at JFK International Airport. ???I cooperated with them 100 percent. And they always kept telling me, ???We'll let you go on the next plane,???" says Arar. ???They did not.???
It would be more than a year before Arar would see his family again. In September 2002, he???d taken his wife and two children on a beach vacation in Tunisia. But he flew home alone early for his job as a software engineer.
What he didn???t know is that he???d been placed on the U.S. immigration watch list. So when the agents began questioning him, he tells 60 Minutes II that he wasn???t concerned ??? at least not at first.
???The interrogation lasted about seven or eight hours, and then they came, and shackled me and chained me,??? recalls Arar. ???I said, ???What's happening here???? And they would not tell me. They said, ???You are gonna know tomorrow.??????
He spent the night in a holding cell. The next day, he was shackled, driven to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and locked in solitary confinement. Agents told him they had evidence that he???d been seen in the company of terrorist suspects in Canada.
???What they accused me of being is very serious. Being a member of al Qaeda,??? says Arar, who denies any involvement with the organization.
Arar wasn???t allowed to make a phone call, so when his wife, Monia, didn???t hear from him, she called the Canadian embassy.
???Nobody knew at that time where he was. He vanished,??? says Monia, who didn???t hear from him for six days. Then, American officials acknowledged they were holding Arar in Brooklyn. A Canadian consular official visited and assured Arar he???d be deported home to Canada.
But the justice department had a different plan. After two weeks in U.S.custody, Arar was taken from his cell by federal agents in the middle of the night.
???They read me the document. They say, ???The INS director decided to deport you to Syria,?????? recalls Arar. ???And of course, the first thing I did was I started crying, because everyone knows that Syria practices torture.???
Arar says he knows because he was born in Syria. He emigrated to Canada with his parents as a teenager. But, returning to Syria as an accused terrorist, he had good reason to be afraid. Torture in Syrian prisons is well-documented. The state department???s own report cites an array of gruesome tortures routinely used in Syrian jails. And in a speech last fall, President Bush condemned Syria, alongside Iraq, for what he called the country???s ???legacy of torture and oppression.???
Nevertheless, deportation agents flew Arar on a specially chartered jet to Jordan, and the Jordanians drove him to Syria.
???When I arrived there, I saw the photos of the Syrian president, and that???s why I realized I was indeed in Syria,??? says Arar. ???I wished I had a knife in my hand to kill myself.???
The next morning, Arar says a Syrian intelligence officer arrived carrying a black electrical cable, two inches thick and about two feet long.
???He said, ???Do you know what this is???? I said, I was crying, you know, ???Yes, I know what it is. It's a cable.??? And he said, ???Open your right hand.??? I opened my right hand ??? and he beat me very strongly,??? says Arar. ???He said, ???Open your left hand.??? And I opened my left hand. And he beat me on my palm, on my left palm. And then he stopped, and he asked me questions. And I said to him, ???I have nothing to hide.??????
Arar says the physical torture took place during the first two weeks, but he says he also went through psychological and mental torture: ???They would take me back to a room, they call it the waiting room. And I hear people screaming. And they, I mean, people, they're being tortured. And I felt my heart was going to go out of my chest.???
But Imad Moustapha, Syria???s highest-ranking diplomat in Washington, says Arar was treated well. He also told Mabrey that Syrian intelligence had never heard of Arar before the U.S. government asked Syria to take him.
Did the U.S. give them any evidence to back up the claim that Arar was a suspected al Qaeda terrorist?
???No. But we did our investigations. We traced links. We traced relations. We tried to find anything. We couldn???t,??? says Moustapha, who adds that they shared their reports with the U.S. ???We always share information with anybody alleged to be in close contact with al Qaeda with the United States.???
The Syrians allowed Canadian officials six short visits with Arar. But Arar says he was warned not to tell them about the torture or how he was being held ??? in an underground cell 3 feet wide, 6 feet long and 7 feet high. It was his home for a full 10 months.
???It's a grave. It???s the same size of a grave. It???s a dark place. It???s underground,??? says Arar.
He says the Syrians were pressing him to confess he???d been to an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan: ???They just wanted to find something that the Americans did not find -- and that???s when they asked me about Afghanistan. They said, ???You???ve been to Afghanistan,??? so they would hit me three, four times. And, if I hesitate, they would hit me again.???
Arar says he signed a confession because he was ???ready to do anything to stop the torture.??? But he claims that he had never been to Afghanistan, or trained at a terrorist camp. ???Just one hit of this cable, it's like you just forget everything in your life. Everything,??? he says. Back in Canada, Monia was fighting for her husband???s life. She marched in front of parliament, and protested in front of the U.S. embassy.
Eventually, she got the ear of then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. On the floor of parliament, Chretian voiced mounting frustration with the U.S. The job eventually went to Gar Pardy, then one of Canada???s top diplomats, to get answers from the Americans.
???The American authorities acknowledged this was a Canadian citizen that they were dealing with. He was traveling on a Canadian passport. There was no ambiguity about any of these issues,??? says Pardy, who believes he should have been sent to Canada, or dealt with under American law in the United States. But not sent to Syria.
But while Canadian diplomats were demanding answers from the U.S., it turns out that it was the Royal Canadian mounted police who had been passing U.S. intelligence the information about Arar???s alleged terrorist associations.
However, U.S. government officials we spoke to say they told Canadian intelligence that they were sending Arar to Syria ??? and the Canadians signed off on the decision.
Pardy says if that's true, it would have been wrong all around: "I would dispute that the people who were making any statements in this context we
re speaking for the Canadian government. A policeman talking to a policeman in this context is not necessarily speaking for the Canadian government.
And the Canadian government wanted Arar back. It took a year and a week from the time Arar was detained in New York for Arar to be released. He arrived home in Canada dazed and exhausted.
Why did Syrian officials let him go? ???Why shouldn't we leave him to go? We thought that would be a gesture of good will towards Canada, which is a friendly nation. For Syria, second, we could not substantiate any of the allegations against him,??? says Moustapha.
He added that the Syrian government now considers Arar completely innocent. But does he feel any remorse about taking a year out of Arar???s life? ???If this was the case, it's not our problem,??? says Arar. ???We did not create this problem.??? 60 Minutes II has learned that the decision to deport Arar was made at the highest levels of the U.S. justice department, with a special removal order signed by John Ashcroft???s former deputy, Larry Thompson.
Ashcroft made his only public statement about the case in November. He said the U.S. deported Arar to protect Americans ???- and had every right to do so.
???I consider that really an utter fabrication and a lie,??? says Michael Rather, Arar???s attorney and head of the Center For Constitutional Rights. He plans to file a lawsuit against Ashcroft and several other American officials.
???They knew, when they were sending him to Syria, that Syria would use certain kinds of information-gathering techniques, including torture, on him. They knew it,??? says Ratner. ???That's why he was sent there. That's why he wasn't sent to Canada.???
Before deporting Arar to Syria, American officials involved in the case told 60 Minutes II they had obtained assurances from the Syrian government that Arar would not be tortured ???- that he would ???be treated humanely???
???The fact that you went looking for assurances, which is reflected here, tells you that even in the minds of people who made this decision,??? says Pardy. ???I mean, there were some second thoughts.???
No one at the justice department would talk to 60 Minutes II on camera about Arar, but they sent us this statement saying:
???The facts underlying Arar???s case???[are]classified and cannot be released publicly.???
???We have information indicating that Mr. Arar is a member of al Qaeda and, therefore, remains a threat to U.S. national security.???
Despite the American accusations, Arar has never been charged with a crime and, today, he???s free in canada. He???s afraid, though, that he might never be able to clear his name.
Arar???s case is unusual because he was sent directly from U.S. soil to Syria. But intelligence sources tell 60 Minutes II that since 9/11, the U.S. has quietly transported hundreds of terror suspects captured in different parts of the world to Middle Eastern countries for tough interrogations.
I rarely cite sources or foot note stuff. Why should I? This is goddamn Soulstrut!
goddamn Soulstrut indeed. you little fucker, sabadasabada. I'm sure you don't know who I am because bullshit like this is why I stopped posting here and ALMOST stopped reading this site entirely. for a while, I still lurked like a motherfucker, but when I realized that most of the time it's not worth my time, I stopped lurking like a motherfucker and just lurked like a lurker should, to wit, occasionally. (lurkers, take fucking note. if you're here all the time and not posting, what the fuck are you doing here? jerking off? laughing?)
As an occasional lurker, there's still people who I like and respect on this site whom I "know" from when I was a frequent contributor. So when I see their names at the end of a thread, i usually click on it to see what the thread is about with the expectation that the poster in question is going to provide a thoughtful contribution to this goddamn place, the likes of which made me like it so much in the first place.
Since I don't give much of a shit about this place anymore, I'm going to go ahead and name names. The people whose shit I check when I come around here are (in no particular order):
Every one of those assholes does something more than esnipe when they post in this place. And every one of them does something elemental to participating in a virtual community like this: THINKS BEFORE THEY POST (sometimes jinx74 doesn't think, but that's usually pretty funny, so he stays). Once upon a time, I urged everyone here to think before they post and someone accused me of being all hoity toity dicksniffing or something like that. Bottom line is this place would be better if everyone took a second to think about what their contribution is before they make their contribution. Are you advancing the fucking ball or just kicking sand in someone's face? And if you're just kicking sand in someone's face, what the fuck are you doing? don't you know it's the goddamn internet? sit down. sack down. smack down.
You've been added to the very short list of people whose shit I NEVER check when I come around here and only don't "ignore this user" due to some basic sense that it stifles freedom of expression which i still respect enough to endure some immature petty nonsense like this entire misplaced ad hominem on motown67. You have to really engage in some repeated acts of utter bullshit to wind up on my shit list, but with this fake ass avoid the issue diatribe against motown67, you've done it. you're there. congratufuckinglations asswipe.
So the heart of the issue. Your panties are wadded against your sphincter because you think Motown67, a public school teacher in Oakland, CA, has passed himself off as a fake before god and soulstrut because he uses INFORMATION from GENERALLY CREDIBLE SOURCES without attribution, though when he is quoting directly he uses quotation marks. Your latest bullshit stance is that you can't engage with motown67 since you don't know where he's deriving his information. if the underlying factual information that forms the basis for his opinion is factually accurate (and I have yet to see a claim that it is not), does it matter what the source is? does it really prevent you from effectively engaging with the material issue? (VALERIE LOVES ME!)
See if it were me and I had the misfortune to disagree with Motown67 and I believed his stance was bullshit, i would begin by saying, "Motown67, you are full of shit and here's why. What you claim to happen didn't happen in the way you said it happened. As a matter of fact, the alleged NSA briefing in april 2001 was merely a handoff of paper with some words on it and as you know, the president can't read more than a paragraph a day." Whatever you want to say, but make your point and back it up. No matter of sourcehorsing can undermine your point if you make it and you have done your legwork to support it.
so you and rockadelic feel put upon because you're both on some kneejerk support the war on terror fuck a constitutional right torture ride that is currently taking us down the spiderhole with Saddam Hussein's shadow. At some point, I (and apparently the majority of the nitwits on soulstrut) just fundamentally disagree with you about the nature and exercise of democracy. My view is that the president is acting as a law unto himself without regard to the consequences of his actions, either domestically or internationally. warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil is illegal and unconstitutional, has been for centuries. (You can bet that George Washington would rather have Martha burn his wooden teeth than allow for the executive to spy on the citizenry - that's some King George III star chamber bullshit that led them to revolt in the first fucking place.) And don't get me started on torture. this President believes that torture should be acceptable to pursue information. And if you don't think it's torture, ask our friend from Canada who was snatched out of JKF airport and held incommunicado and tortured for a year if it was torture. he'll let you know straightaway (and then ask his family how that time was when he just vanished into torturously thin air - ungodly awful in my imagination). Or ask the poor suckers at Abu Ghraib, the ones that lived to tell.
So if you wonder why people are pissed, just imagine your husband disappearing for a year, thinking that he's been kidnapped or killed or left you or whatever you think (did anyone see the upside of anger? I thought it was a pretty sweet movie - the husband she hated for leaving her turned out to be dead the whole time - yeah I just gave away the ending to the three assholes who are still reading this - deal with it suckers) and then finding out that he was snatched out of the airport in the world's greatest democracy and defender of freedoms at home and abroad, held incommunicado for two weeks, then flown to Jordan and taken by car to Syria (a state sponsor of terrorism according to our esteemed government) and tortured for information that he never had in the first place. doesn't that piss you off at least a little? It chafes me to the fucking nub.
don't expect a follow up to this post. i've said my peace and will now return to hiding. Or maybe I won't. but this whole goddamn mess emerged because you would rather attack motown67 for being well-researched than defend your position. I think that's pathetic.
Peace, JRoot
PS there are some people who aren't named on my upright soulstrut citizen's brigade who I do check for on soulstrut because I know them in the world and/or they usually make me laugh. You know who you are. And if you think you are, you are.
thanks for the support Day. Motown probably copied his response to my post from Harper's and can't be trusted.
Arar wasn???t allowed to make a phone call, so when his wife, Monia, didn???t hear from him, she called the Canadian embassy.
???Nobody knew at that time where he was. He vanished,??? says Monia, who didn???t hear from him for six days. Then, American officials acknowledged they were holding Arar in Brooklyn. A Canadian consular official visited and assured Arar he???d be deported home to Canada.
Clearly, I should have done a little more research before blasting off. I didn't know that he was able to call his wife after a week had past. That makes it a little better for the family, but not much help for him.
It's totally outrageous and indefensible.
"INNOCENT CANADIAN CITIZEN SNATCHED BY US, SENT TO SYRIA TO BE TORTURED"*
This is not the country I believe in, JRoot
*quotations represent that this could be a news headline, not that it actually is a news headline. I made it up. does that make it fiction?
I don't know you but I'm sure you're the Motherfucker's, Motherfucker.
It's unfortunate that you can only occupy two places in the SS political spectrum.
You are either part of the Anti-Conservative, Anti-Adminsitration Continious Never Ending Circle Jerk.
Or you're "One Of Them".
What's really sad is that this place is no different than a Rush Limbaugh-like BBS where any opinion that strays from the right[/b] wing GWB ass kissing[/b] variety is attacked and run out of town.
Just replace the words right with left[/b] and kissing with kicking[/b] .
And boiling down the War on terror or the War in Iraq to a single instance where the Canadian government gave faulty info which led to a tragedy is absurd.
Constructively critisizing a country or government is patriotic.
Constantly criticizing any/everything about a country or government without any balance, 24/7, is not(of course this is just my opinion, which by the way is as valid and important as anyone else's whether you like it or not).
While you place me in the "knee jerk pro War" camp, you will not find a single post nor thread where I support declaring War on Iraq.
You will however find posts where I support some of the actions taken by our government in their attempt to win and then hopefully end this war.
I don't believe in abandoning the government that has given me freedom and the ability to live a productive life just because of a bad decision.
So I won't make your Special Friends Fave Posters list.....I'm crushed.
What's really sad is that most of you are pretty bright folks who are so blinded by your passion you can't see how bigoted you treat folks with opposing views.
Fuck A Bush is a rally cry
Fuck A Dean is blasphemy
And in the end, whether it be by our two party system and the horizontal politics they promote, or by an enemy who's helped divide our country, we'll all be fucked.
There IS something to that United We Stand bullshit you know.
What's really sad is that this place is no different than a Rush Limbaugh-like BBS where any opinion that strays from the right[/b] wing GWB ass kissing[/b] variety is attacked and run out of town.
Just replace the words right with left[/b] and kissing with kicking[/b] .
This is actually untrue. Vitamin, were he ever to post here again, generally was accorded with respect. sure enough there were knee jerk anti war folks who were like "fuck you vitamin you neocon apologist" but vitamin was shrewd enough to see that posts like that aren't really worth engaging. he chose instead to offer his thought out, researched position in support of the war. Lots of people disagreed with him, and he and Motown67 had some factual battles which were engaging to watch. But see when you don't take the time to think things through and read long detailed researched posts, all you see is the fuck you vitamin you necon apologist side of things.
And boiling down the War on terror or the War in Iraq to a single instance where the Canadian government gave faulty info which led to a tragedy is absurd.
this recent incident, to me, is the apotheosis of what is wrong with the war on terror. instead of having the courage to live up to our national principles and engage in a fierce but ETHICAL struggle against those who wish to see our country's demise, we engage terror on terror's level, which of course only supports the underlying reasons why a lot of people in the world hate this country. We're arrogant. We're powerful. And we only enforce domestic and international law when it suits our purposes.
Constructively critisizing a country or government is patriotic.
Constantly criticizing any/everything about a country or government without any balance, 24/7, is not(of course this is just my opinion, which by the way is as valid and important as anyone else's whether you like it or not).
just because you have an opinion does not make it as valid and important as anyone else's. Opinions increase in validity and importance to the extent that they rely on thoughtful responses to facts. You have repeatedly and doggedly refused to engage with facts that either support or oppose your position, choosing instead to rely on "the way i see it." While there is a place for personal emotional responses, they are only externally valid to the extent they are premised on facts.
I don't believe in abandoning the government that has given me freedom and the ability to live a productive life just because of a bad decision.
Nowhere have i advocated abandoning the government, but I have recognized and continue to recognize that this government has abandoned the rights-based democracy that has sustained this country for over two centuries. and I will offer even a modicum of support to it for so doing. It's an outrage and a crime and those responsible should be held accountable. But they won't be, and that's sad. this country is a great place that continues to have a lot of promise, but if our foreign and economic policies continue to ignore human needs and human rights, we will continue to lose allies in the world, leaving us only with a short company of syncophantic nations that cozy up to us because we remain the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world (for now). this nation, if it were to live out the true meaning of its creed, would eschew the type of unilateral military actions it has been pursuing since 2002 in Iraq, and it would certainly never be in the position where anyone can say that this government permits or condones torture of potentially innocent suspects. Such is where we find ourselves today, however, and it is and will remain shocking. At least to me.
So I won't make your Special Friends Fave Posters list.....I'm crushed.
If you don't care, don't respond.
What's really sad is that most of you are pretty bright folks who are so blinded by your passion you can't see how bigoted you treat folks with opposing views.
If demanding support to back up positions is tantamount to bigotry, then bigoted I must be. I'm bigoted against ignorance, in favor of thoughtful discourse. THINK BEFORE YOU POST.
There IS something to that United We Stand bullshit you know.
What are we united about? what should we be united about? in my view we should be united in thinking that torture of suspects, even if they are accused of unspeakable crimes, is unconscionable. We should be united in thinking that international participation in regional intervention is good, not just for the region and the world, but for us. We should be united in our belief that the right to counsel is too precious to let anyone who can fog a mirror defend an individual who could be sentenced to death upon conviction. We should be united in thinking that profit has no place in health care. But those are controversial positions, with which not everyone agrees. So it is encumbent upon me and others who share these views to engage with the body politic in an effort to persuade them of the correctness of our views, even if they be currently in the popular minority. What good would come from feigned unity?
"If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." So said the Supreme Court in 1943, in a decision prohibiting schools from requiring the pledge of allegiance to the flag from their students. (West Va. State Bd of Ed v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).) Before we consign this passage to our box of quaint legal relics from a bygone era, we should recall that this case was decided 18 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Then, as now, the United States was at war. Then, the highest court in the land was willing to stand up to compulsory efforts to create or maintain national unity. The Court declared, "Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."
That's where I stand on the United We Stand bullshit.
This just in, the original Harper's magazine article that I used as a source for the piece I wrote HAS NO FOOTNOTES! No list of sources either! It uses direct quotes from a 9/11 Commission report, but does not cite them!
Sabadoodoo, this is a revelation to me. You have opened my eyes.
Why couldn't I see this before?!?!?! Harper's is obviously part of the liberal news media establishment! They are just bashing Bush because of their deep partisan political hatred for everything, dare I say it, yes I will, EVERYTHING AMERICAN!!!!
Perhaps there are certain forums and circumstances where footnotes and sourcing are not required and still maintain legitimacy? Perhaps with certain bodies of work people can tell that it is researched and will deal with the facts presented rather than deal with the lack of citation? Shit, what the fuck am I thinking, this is AMERICA!
Let us all bow our heads for a moment and join hands around the virtual Soulstrut table in this moment of revelation. Might it be appropriate to sing the national anthem? At least God Bless America since it's come back in vogue. Sabadoodoo, please start us on the first verse.
I don't believe in abandoning the government that has given me freedom and the ability to live a productive life just because of a bad decision.
It is a mistake to think that George Bush, Rumsfeld, Frist.. are our government. They are not. We are a government by and for the people. You and I are the government. Howard Dean, who holds no office, and John Kerry, who does, are our government. If you believe that the President should be above criticism for his actions, because United We Stand, then you should also refrain from any criticism of Dean and Kerry.
The recent case of the Canadian who we sized and sent to a third country for torture, puts a face on actions that have been reported for years, we should take note. To dismiss torture, conducted by you and me (since we are the government), as one isolated incident is a mistake. We have for years heard about these atrocities, the fact that we have only met one of the victims face to face does not lessen the outrage.
The recent case[/b] of the Canadian who we sized and sent to a third country for torture...
I thought this was recent too as I hadn't heard anything about it, then I saw the date of the article I posted: Jan. 21, 2004[/b]. Is this story just now reaching people 3 years after the fact?
The recent case[/b] of the Canadian who we sized and sent to a third country for torture...
I thought this was recent too as I hadn't heard anything about it, then I saw the date of the article I posted: Jan. 21, 2004[/b]. Is this story just now reaching people 3 years after the fact?
Day,
It appears the reason why Mr. Arar's case is in the news now is because the Canadian governnent released an official report on his case just a few days ago. As the piece you posted before noted, he was arrested by the U.S. in Sept. 2002 at JFK airport on his way back from vacation in Tunisia. He was sent to Syria and wasn't released until Oct. 2003. In Jan. 2004 the Canadian government announced that it was setting up a commission to look into his story. That same month he announced that he was going to sue the U.S. government over their actions. That case got thrown out of court the next month on national security grounds by the judge. I guess that Canadian commission or perhaps another one finally finished their work, and hence the recent wave of news stories.
I cite my references when I cuntpaste a news article. DrWu manages to do it and Fatback and everyone else here who expects to be taken seriously.
I for one agree with Sababada that Motown was misleading in that he could have prefaced everything with saying this is mostly breakdowns of articles that he finds palusible, truthful and/or interesting.
I also agree with everyone on here that Sablahblahblah is too scared to get in the ring with me or any of the other "pinko-america haters" (hence all his missing homework assignments) because he knows that the minute he begins to put forth his agenda in more than a cursory way, he is gonna get put on blast by guys who are just as smart as he thinks he is.
Therefore, while I find it regrettable that motown has sometimes not identified his sources, I find it far more despicable that our hoping to get that unit with a view of the park, taking my wife to Les Halles for our anniversary, can't wait till I get a place in Western Mass, all I care about is the benjamins and my expensive shoes conservative ass corporate lawyer strutter, doesn't even believe in his own leaders/ideology enough to explain his point of view to anyone with a brain. You, mon frere, are the worst kind of fraud, a smart but utterly cowardly hack who will felch from the crack of your bosses ass so you can afford more cashmere sweaters.
Understand fellow strutters that Sababaloser will never respond to direct questions about politics because it requires character and character don't play in the corner office mind set that he has bought into.
I'm not going to get into a long winded pissing match with you.
I stated my opinions and I stand by them...you can do the same.
Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel even understand the value and need of a "United" nation and that's why THEY trashed Hugo Chavez for attacking GWB at the U.N.
So do I.
I've been a member of right wing BBS and have been treated with the same exact "you're either with us or against us" mentality when questioning their fanatical anti-Liberal beliefs.
That's why I can easily recognize it here.
And in a democracy EVERYONE's opinion, vis-a-vis the vote, is just as important as anyone elses. No matter how arrogant or intellectual you think you are.
And that's one of the many reasons why America is GREAT.
And that is my final post on the matter, and while I may not be as smart as you, I am a man of my word.
1) Motown has posted a bunch of stuff, and I remember it was definitely his own words. He tends to get more specific than any one else on here and I don't really get what the offense is. It's an internet board, it's not a newspaper. He's just trying to enlighten the political debate and he did put quotes around a lot of that stuff. So I aint mad at him.
2) Seriously, on the what did Bush do before 9-11? IT IS OBVIOUS that neither he or Clinton, or Bush I or Reagan or Carter took the overall threat of nihilist Islam seriously enough before 9-11. We can forgive them for this. Just as it is obvious that FDR was not watching the Japanese Navy as careful as he should have in hindsight. The political judgment must be rendered after the attacks. And at this point Bush has seriously muddled what he promised was to be an offensive war on terror with a series of scary defensive measures that will be next to impossible to address down the road.
If you are a conservative, and not just a Republican, then you have to be worried that Bush rewarded the intelligence bureaucracies that failed pre-911 with bigger budgets and more powers and more layers of bureaucracy after the attacks. We should be concerned about this administration's willingness to prosecute the recipients of leaks, failure to inform the appropriate committees in congress about major new interpretations of existing FISA statutes. Sadly Bush has infatnalized Americans. Instead of making the infinitely reasonable case on say October 11, 2001--This new war will require our CIA and military to treat the enemy differently than we have treated foreign armies--he allowed his lawyers and advisers to devise new rules in secret that ultimately did lead to awful excesses. The truth is I think most Americans could understand that in some cases there should be exceptions to Geneva. But instead of treating us like a nation of citizens, we had to learn about this in drips and drabs after the fact. And as an insult to injurty the journalists who helped expose the real shit, are now being threatened with jail time.
I don't like the anti-war left. I don't really like Olberman, And I certainly have had it out with a lot of you on here before. But the forces of accomodation are strengthened by a ham handed and secret executive. And conservatives should be the first to recognize this.
and what ecactly is this "anti-war left" that you hate? the people who question your little political science experiment in Iraq? or just the people who are trying check the frat-boy you duped into "running" it? either way, it's a good thing you're overseas, because you hate most of the american public.
by the anti-war left I think he is reffering to the type of useful idiots who profess their undying commitment to peace whilst wearing heszbollah t-shirts.
Comments
My, all that stickling for detail then this:
"he isn't a[/b] anti-war voice"
Can I get a ruling from the grammar police?
The spelling police have taken jurisdiction in this thread. They're getting their rubber truncheons and battery cables out....
Sab will probably make an excellent lawyer helping large corporations evade proper taxation or something.
What a dick.
you just had to read it, I had to write half of this shit. And let me tell you its not easy.
when you cant just cut and paste it from somewhere else anyways.
You've been so repetitive with the ducking of issues and focus on plaigarism that I thought you were cutting and pasting!
or to sum up
1+1=7
I can't believe I just read those entire 11 pages...
Sabadabada,
After reading this mess, it seems to me that you are the Rush Limbaugh of Soul Strut. By that I mean it is a mystery to me if YOU even believe what you write. I think you are just trying to stir up shit. Your insistence that Mowtown is a fraud is a pathetically transparent way of avoiding the work it would take to refute his WELL RESEARCHED[/b] post. You now know the sources. He told you. Go read them and present an argument refuting the facts. If this is too much work for you, or you just don't feel like it then fess up like an adult. Instead, you choose to malign Motowon as a FRAUD[/b] and a PLAGARIST[/b]. Your righteous indignation at his message board posting ethics are really sad, and again, very transparent.
You sir, are the fraud, and ethically, it is you who are suspect.
This is not about Right vs. Left. Vitamin's posts, while reflecting a more conservative view, are still welll-thought out, and well written arguments. I have really enjoyed some of the political debates between Motown and Vitamin, and I have learned more from thier exchanges then I ever do in POLITICAL[/b] forums. We don't need to agree, we just need to communicate with a modicum of manners. Debate is healthy! It is exercise for the brain.
Motown is doing the heavy lifting here and you, Sabadabada, are just calling names and it is not a good look.
The jealousy factor.
The nobody listens to me factor.
The frustrated authority figure factor.
The partisan hack factor.
Oops, almost forgot, the personal smear factor. Criticism = anti-americanism
If you accept Sab's definition of the term, it???s fair to say Motown plagiarises. However, I don't think Sab's definition is reasonable in the context of soulstrut, not because "it's just a messageboard", but because our level of discourse doesn't require citing sources. Motown posts his research, we read if it we choose, and move on. Generally, no one engages his longer reports in any meaningful way--Sab certainly doesn't--and so there's little need for Motown to adhere to basic rules of scholarly or journalistic writing. Why should he bother? That being said, Sab is right; if any of us wanted to investigate the reliability of motown's research we couldn't because he provides no sources. It would only take some internal citations.
I'm not denigrating Motown's contributions. I think his is a voice of reason and I respect how thoroughly he engages important issues. I have a lot of admiration for anybody who reads widely about anything.
goddamn Soulstrut indeed. you little fucker, sabadasabada. I'm sure you don't know who I am because bullshit like this is why I stopped posting here and ALMOST stopped reading this site entirely. for a while, I still lurked like a motherfucker, but when I realized that most of the time it's not worth my time, I stopped lurking like a motherfucker and just lurked like a lurker should, to wit, occasionally. (lurkers, take fucking note. if you're here all the time and not posting, what the fuck are you doing here? jerking off? laughing?)
As an occasional lurker, there's still people who I like and respect on this site whom I "know" from when I was a frequent contributor. So when I see their names at the end of a thread, i usually click on it to see what the thread is about with the expectation that the poster in question is going to provide a thoughtful contribution to this goddamn place, the likes of which made me like it so much in the first place.
Since I don't give much of a shit about this place anymore, I'm going to go ahead and name names. The people whose shit I check when I come around here are (in no particular order):
Odub
Bambouche
Asprin
Jinx74
funky16corners
Raj
dollarbin
dcarfagna
dcastillo
vitamin
james
terry_clubbup
Phill_Most
drewn
soufriere
aschrock
crazypoprock
natebizzo
oh and one more
motown67
Every one of those assholes does something more than esnipe when they post in this place. And every one of them does something elemental to participating in a virtual community like this: THINKS BEFORE THEY POST (sometimes jinx74 doesn't think, but that's usually pretty funny, so he stays). Once upon a time, I urged everyone here to think before they post and someone accused me of being all hoity toity dicksniffing or something like that. Bottom line is this place would be better if everyone took a second to think about what their contribution is before they make their contribution. Are you advancing the fucking ball or just kicking sand in someone's face? And if you're just kicking sand in someone's face, what the fuck are you doing? don't you know it's the goddamn internet? sit down. sack down. smack down.
You've been added to the very short list of people whose shit I NEVER check when I come around here and only don't "ignore this user" due to some basic sense that it stifles freedom of expression which i still respect enough to endure some immature petty nonsense like this entire misplaced ad hominem on motown67. You have to really engage in some repeated acts of utter bullshit to wind up on my shit list, but with this fake ass avoid the issue diatribe against motown67, you've done it. you're there. congratufuckinglations asswipe.
So the heart of the issue. Your panties are wadded against your sphincter because you think Motown67, a public school teacher in Oakland, CA, has passed himself off as a fake before god and soulstrut because he uses INFORMATION from GENERALLY CREDIBLE SOURCES without attribution, though when he is quoting directly he uses quotation marks. Your latest bullshit stance is that you can't engage with motown67 since you don't know where he's deriving his information. if the underlying factual information that forms the basis for his opinion is factually accurate (and I have yet to see a claim that it is not), does it matter what the source is? does it really prevent you from effectively engaging with the material issue? (VALERIE LOVES ME!)
See if it were me and I had the misfortune to disagree with Motown67 and I believed his stance was bullshit, i would begin by saying, "Motown67, you are full of shit and here's why. What you claim to happen didn't happen in the way you said it happened. As a matter of fact, the alleged NSA briefing in april 2001 was merely a handoff of paper with some words on it and as you know, the president can't read more than a paragraph a day." Whatever you want to say, but make your point and back it up. No matter of sourcehorsing can undermine your point if you make it and you have done your legwork to support it.
so you and rockadelic feel put upon because you're both on some kneejerk support the war on terror fuck a constitutional right torture ride that is currently taking us down the spiderhole with Saddam Hussein's shadow. At some point, I (and apparently the majority of the nitwits on soulstrut) just fundamentally disagree with you about the nature and exercise of democracy. My view is that the president is acting as a law unto himself without regard to the consequences of his actions, either domestically or internationally. warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil is illegal and unconstitutional, has been for centuries. (You can bet that George Washington would rather have Martha burn his wooden teeth than allow for the executive to spy on the citizenry - that's some King George III star chamber bullshit that led them to revolt in the first fucking place.) And don't get me started on torture. this President believes that torture should be acceptable to pursue information. And if you don't think it's torture, ask our friend from Canada who was snatched out of JKF airport and held incommunicado and tortured for a year if it was torture. he'll let you know straightaway (and then ask his family how that time was when he just vanished into torturously thin air - ungodly awful in my imagination). Or ask the poor suckers at Abu Ghraib, the ones that lived to tell.
So if you wonder why people are pissed, just imagine your husband disappearing for a year, thinking that he's been kidnapped or killed or left you or whatever you think (did anyone see the upside of anger? I thought it was a pretty sweet movie - the husband she hated for leaving her turned out to be dead the whole time - yeah I just gave away the ending to the three assholes who are still reading this - deal with it suckers) and then finding out that he was snatched out of the airport in the world's greatest democracy and defender of freedoms at home and abroad, held incommunicado for two weeks, then flown to Jordan and taken by car to Syria (a state sponsor of terrorism according to our esteemed government) and tortured for information that he never had in the first place. doesn't that piss you off at least a little? It chafes me to the fucking nub.
don't expect a follow up to this post. i've said my peace and will now return to hiding. Or maybe I won't. but this whole goddamn mess emerged because you would rather attack motown67 for being well-researched than defend your position. I think that's pathetic.
Peace,
JRoot
PS there are some people who aren't named on my upright soulstrut citizen's brigade who I do check for on soulstrut because I know them in the world and/or they usually make me laugh. You know who you are. And if you think you are, you are.
You did not cite your sources for the information about the man snatched from JFK and sent to be tortured. PLAGARIST!
Danno,
Just wanted to say that if anyone, besides sabadoodoo, asks for my sources I will gladly provide them. In the Iraq thread when Fatback asked for footnotes, I told him I didn't have the time given the length of the piece I wrote, but I did provide a list of everything that I used. If people want the sources for the piece in this thread that I wrote in response to sab I'll provide that as well.
You have basically summed up my general feelings about why I don't cite sources or provide footnotes. (Footnotes especially just seem to be a ridiculous requirement when writing something for this forum.) In certain circumstances all of these are necessary parts to maintain your credibility and I've followed those when called for in professional writings I've done out in the "real world", but besides sabadoodoo, I think everyone has figured out that I am researching and looking up articles and such when writing long pieces (using direct quotes with " " being an obvious sign to people) so I've never bothered to provide notation on them.
Finally, I'd just like to say this. Sabadoodoo, please let me know when and how I can get you this hot and bothered and your panties in a bunch up your ass again. I would really like to do this again, in fact, several times. I am really enjoying this whole show of indiganation and outrage on your part.
Allow me to be of assistance.
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust in case anyone is dumb enough to go head up with JRoot; think twice.
Clearly, I should have done a little more research before blasting off. I didn't know that he was able to call his wife after a week had past. That makes it a little better for the family, but not much help for him.
It's totally outrageous and indefensible.
"INNOCENT CANADIAN CITIZEN SNATCHED BY US, SENT TO SYRIA TO BE TORTURED"*
This is not the country I believe in,
JRoot
*quotations represent that this could be a news headline, not that it actually is a news headline. I made it up. does that make it fiction?
I don't know you but I'm sure you're the Motherfucker's, Motherfucker.
It's unfortunate that you can only occupy two places in the SS political spectrum.
You are either part of the Anti-Conservative, Anti-Adminsitration Continious Never Ending Circle Jerk.
Or you're "One Of Them".
What's really sad is that this place is no different than a Rush Limbaugh-like BBS where any opinion that strays from the right[/b] wing GWB ass kissing[/b] variety is attacked and run out of town.
Just replace the words right with left[/b] and kissing with kicking[/b] .
And boiling down the War on terror or the War in Iraq to a single instance where the Canadian government gave faulty info which led to a tragedy is absurd.
Constructively critisizing a country or government is patriotic.
Constantly criticizing any/everything about a country or government without any balance, 24/7, is not(of course this is just my opinion, which by the way is as valid and important as anyone else's whether you like it or not).
While you place me in the "knee jerk pro War" camp, you will not find a single post nor thread where I support declaring War on Iraq.
You will however find posts where I support some of the actions taken by our government in their attempt to win and then hopefully end this war.
I don't believe in abandoning the government that has given me freedom and the ability to live a productive life just because of a bad decision.
So I won't make your Special Friends Fave Posters list.....I'm crushed.
What's really sad is that most of you are pretty bright folks who are so blinded by your passion you can't see how bigoted you treat folks with opposing views.
Fuck A Bush is a rally cry
Fuck A Dean is blasphemy
And in the end, whether it be by our two party system and the horizontal politics they promote, or by an enemy who's helped divide our country, we'll all be fucked.
There IS something to that United We Stand bullshit you know.
This is actually untrue. Vitamin, were he ever to post here again, generally was accorded with respect. sure enough there were knee jerk anti war folks who were like "fuck you vitamin you neocon apologist" but vitamin was shrewd enough to see that posts like that aren't really worth engaging. he chose instead to offer his thought out, researched position in support of the war. Lots of people disagreed with him, and he and Motown67 had some factual battles which were engaging to watch. But see when you don't take the time to think things through and read long detailed researched posts, all you see is the fuck you vitamin you necon apologist side of things.
this recent incident, to me, is the apotheosis of what is wrong with the war on terror. instead of having the courage to live up to our national principles and engage in a fierce but ETHICAL struggle against those who wish to see our country's demise, we engage terror on terror's level, which of course only supports the underlying reasons why a lot of people in the world hate this country. We're arrogant. We're powerful. And we only enforce domestic and international law when it suits our purposes.
just because you have an opinion does not make it as valid and important as anyone else's. Opinions increase in validity and importance to the extent that they rely on thoughtful responses to facts. You have repeatedly and doggedly refused to engage with facts that either support or oppose your position, choosing instead to rely on "the way i see it." While there is a place for personal emotional responses, they are only externally valid to the extent they are premised on facts.
Nowhere have i advocated abandoning the government, but I have recognized and continue to recognize that this government has abandoned the rights-based democracy that has sustained this country for over two centuries. and I will offer even a modicum of support to it for so doing. It's an outrage and a crime and those responsible should be held accountable. But they won't be, and that's sad. this country is a great place that continues to have a lot of promise, but if our foreign and economic policies continue to ignore human needs and human rights, we will continue to lose allies in the world, leaving us only with a short company of syncophantic nations that cozy up to us because we remain the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world (for now). this nation, if it were to live out the true meaning of its creed, would eschew the type of unilateral military actions it has been pursuing since 2002 in Iraq, and it would certainly never be in the position where anyone can say that this government permits or condones torture of potentially innocent suspects. Such is where we find ourselves today, however, and it is and will remain shocking. At least to me.
If you don't care, don't respond.
If demanding support to back up positions is tantamount to bigotry, then bigoted I must be. I'm bigoted against ignorance, in favor of thoughtful discourse. THINK BEFORE YOU POST.
What are we united about? what should we be united about? in my view we should be united in thinking that torture of suspects, even if they are accused of unspeakable crimes, is unconscionable. We should be united in thinking that international participation in regional intervention is good, not just for the region and the world, but for us. We should be united in our belief that the right to counsel is too precious to let anyone who can fog a mirror defend an individual who could be sentenced to death upon conviction. We should be united in thinking that profit has no place in health care. But those are controversial positions, with which not everyone agrees. So it is encumbent upon me and others who share these views to engage with the body politic in an effort to persuade them of the correctness of our views, even if they be currently in the popular minority. What good would come from feigned unity?
"If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." So said the Supreme Court in 1943, in a decision prohibiting schools from requiring the pledge of allegiance to the flag from their students. (West Va. State Bd of Ed v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).) Before we consign this passage to our box of quaint legal relics from a bygone era, we should recall that this case was decided 18 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Then, as now, the United States was at war. Then, the highest court in the land was willing to stand up to compulsory efforts to create or maintain national unity. The Court declared, "Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."
That's where I stand on the United We Stand bullshit.
You know?
JRoot
Sabadoodoo, this is a revelation to me. You have opened my eyes.
Why couldn't I see this before?!?!?! Harper's is obviously part of the liberal news media establishment! They are just bashing Bush because of their deep partisan political hatred for everything, dare I say it, yes I will, EVERYTHING AMERICAN!!!!
Perhaps there are certain forums and circumstances where footnotes and sourcing are not required and still maintain legitimacy? Perhaps with certain bodies of work people can tell that it is researched and will deal with the facts presented rather than deal with the lack of citation? Shit, what the fuck am I thinking, this is AMERICA!
Let us all bow our heads for a moment and join hands around the virtual Soulstrut table in this moment of revelation. Might it be appropriate to sing the national anthem? At least God Bless America since it's come back in vogue. Sabadoodoo, please start us on the first verse.
It is a mistake to think that George Bush, Rumsfeld, Frist.. are our government. They are not. We are a government by and for the people. You and I are the government. Howard Dean, who holds no office, and John Kerry, who does, are our government. If you believe that the President should be above criticism for his actions, because United We Stand, then you should also refrain from any criticism of Dean and Kerry.
The recent case of the Canadian who we sized and sent to a third country for torture, puts a face on actions that have been reported for years, we should take note. To dismiss torture, conducted by you and me (since we are the government), as one isolated incident is a mistake. We have for years heard about these atrocities, the fact that we have only met one of the victims face to face does not lessen the outrage.
Dan
I thought this was recent too as I hadn't heard anything about it, then I saw the date of the article I posted: Jan. 21, 2004[/b].
Is this story just now reaching people 3 years after the fact?
Day,
It appears the reason why Mr. Arar's case is in the news now is because the Canadian governnent released an official report on his case just a few days ago. As the piece you posted before noted, he was arrested by the U.S. in Sept. 2002 at JFK airport on his way back from vacation in Tunisia. He was sent to Syria and wasn't released until Oct. 2003. In Jan. 2004 the Canadian government announced that it was setting up a commission to look into his story. That same month he announced that he was going to sue the U.S. government over their actions. That case got thrown out of court the next month on national security grounds by the judge. I guess that Canadian commission or perhaps another one finally finished their work, and hence the recent wave of news stories.
I for one agree with Sababada that Motown was misleading in that he could have prefaced everything with saying this is mostly breakdowns of articles that he finds palusible, truthful and/or interesting.
I also agree with everyone on here that Sablahblahblah is too scared to get in the ring with me or any of the other "pinko-america haters" (hence all his missing homework assignments) because he knows that the minute he begins to put forth his agenda in more than a cursory way, he is gonna get put on blast by guys who are just as smart as he thinks he is.
Therefore, while I find it regrettable that motown has sometimes not identified his sources, I find it far more despicable that our hoping to get that unit with a view of the park, taking my wife to Les Halles for our anniversary, can't wait till I get a place in Western Mass, all I care about is the benjamins and my expensive shoes conservative ass corporate lawyer strutter, doesn't even believe in his own leaders/ideology enough to explain his point of view to anyone with a brain. You, mon frere, are the worst kind of fraud, a smart but utterly cowardly hack who will felch from the crack of your bosses ass so you can afford more cashmere sweaters.
Understand fellow strutters that Sababaloser will never respond to direct questions about politics because it requires character and character don't play in the corner office mind set that he has bought into.
Your serve Sababaloo.
I stated my opinions and I stand by them...you can do the same.
Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel even understand the value and need of a "United" nation and that's why THEY trashed Hugo Chavez for attacking GWB at the U.N.
So do I.
I've been a member of right wing BBS and have been treated with the same exact "you're either with us or against us" mentality when questioning their fanatical anti-Liberal beliefs.
That's why I can easily recognize it here.
And in a democracy EVERYONE's opinion, vis-a-vis the vote, is just as important as anyone elses. No matter how arrogant or intellectual you think you are.
And that's one of the many reasons why America is GREAT.
And that is my final post on the matter, and while I may not be as smart as you, I am a man of my word.
1) Motown has posted a bunch of stuff, and I remember it was definitely his own words. He tends to get more specific than any one else on here and I don't really get what the offense is. It's an internet board, it's not a newspaper. He's just trying to enlighten the political debate and he did put quotes around a lot of that stuff. So I aint mad at him.
2) Seriously, on the what did Bush do before 9-11? IT IS OBVIOUS that neither he or Clinton, or Bush I or Reagan or Carter took the overall threat of nihilist Islam seriously enough before 9-11. We can forgive them for this. Just as it is obvious that FDR was not watching the Japanese Navy as careful as he should have in hindsight. The political judgment must be rendered after the attacks. And at this point Bush has seriously muddled what he promised was to be an offensive war on terror with a series of scary defensive measures that will be next to impossible to address down the road.
If you are a conservative, and not just a Republican, then you have to be worried that Bush rewarded the intelligence bureaucracies that failed pre-911 with bigger budgets and more powers and more layers of bureaucracy after the attacks. We should be concerned about this administration's willingness to prosecute the recipients of leaks, failure to inform the appropriate committees in congress about major new interpretations of existing FISA statutes. Sadly Bush has infatnalized Americans. Instead of making the infinitely reasonable case on say October 11, 2001--This new war will require our CIA and military to treat the enemy differently than we have treated foreign armies--he allowed his lawyers and advisers to devise new rules in secret that ultimately did lead to awful excesses. The truth is I think most Americans could understand that in some cases there should be exceptions to Geneva. But instead of treating us like a nation of citizens, we had to learn about this in drips and drabs after the fact. And as an insult to injurty the journalists who helped expose the real shit, are now being threatened with jail time.
I don't like the anti-war left. I don't really like Olberman, And I certainly have had it out with a lot of you on here before. But the forces of accomodation are strengthened by a ham handed and secret executive. And conservatives should be the first to recognize this.
and what ecactly is this "anti-war left" that you hate? the people who question your little political science experiment in Iraq? or just the people who are trying check the frat-boy you duped into "running" it? either way, it's a good thing you're overseas, because you hate most of the american public.
oh, and hi.