5
POPSRepublicans Need to Dump the Neoconservatives The republicans need a "tea party" within their own camp! The Bush and present GOP "conservatives" are pushing big government Statism as much as Democrats, with only a different slant. Wars for democracy are a key element of both parties now. There is an insidious philosophy underlying this acceptance of the "natural" growth of statism. Neoconservative columnist David Brooks wrote ... we need "a vigorous One Nation Conservatism ... by making the nation great, individuals are able to join their narrow concerns to a larger national project." Actually, it was originally the Democrats that used to believe in curtailing the powers of the Federal government. (This was after the Civil War where they were called Dixie-crats). See this related Clipmark: Danger--America Becoming Statist, First Bush Now Obama
3
POPSSen. Byrd Challenges Obama's Afghanistan Surge, the Forgotten Bin Laden "The reason for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan has become lost, consumed in some broader scheme of nation-building" Then point blank: "I am compelled to ask: Does it really take 100,000 U.S. troops to find Osama bin Laden? If al-Qaida has moved to Pakistan, what will these troops sent to Afghanistan add to the effort to 'defeat' al-Qaida?" Can anyone answer that, straight up? In other words, it's contrary to their own propaganda. Will Obama listen to him? : Do recall Sen. Byrd's famous "The Truth Will Emerge" speech opposing war with Iraq --which is now entirely vindicated. mark my words, the calculated intimidation that we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.
2
POPSWH Response to More Troop Request
This incomplete and unconfirmed story, aka "leak," hints that the President may not go along with the Pentagon request for more troops in Afghanistan. Although, that's still just a "leak," right now and there has been no official request for more troops. It seems we're once again in a "battle of the leaks," -- people sending out anonymous ideas and checking out the responses. The rabid right-wing will make up lies and jump on everything to smear Obama...and there are some landmine issues that could cripple any president: 1. Backing down to the Russians....a big American no-no...and that's now claimed, plus: 2. Not supporting troops/war -- 3. Not offering special deals and blind, uncritical support for Israel. Yet, the President appears to be keeping his head straight, despite the rabid right -- defeating Al-Qaeda makes sense, at least. Nation building and long term in Afghanistan....where did that idea come from? Or War in Iraq? -- build on lies. War in Iran?
1
POPSAfghanistan: Deja Vu As a country we seem to be going down a path that led to a disaster many years ago. Afghanistan is not Vietnam, Vietnam was a country that had a strong foundation, in fact the NVM were one of the best trained military army's in the world, they had foiled attacks form china and japan and sent the French home. Afghanistan is made up of many tribal units that have no love for each other but have a common enemy in the USA, It seems an impossible war to win and many soldiers will die in the meantime, what would happen in the world if we pulled out of Afghanistan, probably nothing, I believe its more about disgrace at this point or possibly their opium crops, there is no other value there that I can see. The ironic part is that at one time we were their friend and helped them defeat the soviets by giving them weapons and training, then we turned our backs on them once the threat was gone.
4
POPSConservative George Will calls for Afghanistan pull-out Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked Monday by Peter Cook of Bloomberg TV: “Are we winning in Afghanistan?” “I think it's a mixed picture in Afghanistan,” Gates replied. “I think that there aren’t too many people with too rosy a view of what's going on in Afghanistan. I think there are many challenges. But I think some of the gloom and doom is somewhat overdrawn as well. … I think that there are some positive developments. But there is no question our casualties are up and there's no question we have a very tough fight in front of us, a lot of challenges.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26628.html#ixzz0Pocw7LWI
20
POPS"The Masada MYTH" by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Israeli sociologist 
"In 73 AD, legend has it, 960 Jewish rebels under siege in the ancient desert fortress of Masada committed suicide (in conflict with Judaism’s teachings) rather than surrender to a Roman legion. Recorded in only one historical source, the story of Masada was obscure for centuries. Ben-Yehuda tracks the process by which Masada became an ideological symbol for the State of Israel, the dramatic subject of movies and miniseries, a shrine venerated by generations of Zionists and Israeli soldiers, and the most profitable tourist attraction in modern Israel. "Placing the story in a larger historical, sociological, and psychological context, Ben-Yehuda draws upon theories of collective memory and mythmaking to analyze Masada’s crucial role in the nation-building process of modern Israel and the formation of a new Jewish identity. An expert on deviance and social control, he looks in particular at how a military failure was fabricated as a heroic tale."
4
POPSThe General Thinks The Republican Party Is 'In The Desert' In fact, the GOP's tent has many poles: It has social conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, national-security hawks. These groups do not always agree: The so-cons resent the libertarians' insouciance on gay marriage and abortion. The libertarians don't get the warhawks' obsession with thankless nation-building in Islamist hellholes. A lot of the hawks can't see why the fiscal cons are so hung up on footling matters like bloated government spending at a time of war. It requires a lot of effort to align these various poles sufficiently to hold up the big tent. And by the 2006 electoral cycle, between the money-no-object Congress at home and a war that seemed to have dwindled down to an endless half-hearted semicolonial policing operation, the GOP poles were tilting badly. The Republican coalition is like a permanent loveless marriage: There are bad times and worse times.
2
POPS "Quagmire!" Discredited Bush admin turncoat Colin Powell, known for disliking wars that last more than six months and involve actually taking casualties; purported Afghan expert Karin von Hippel, who thinks Afghanistan needs to be swamped with hundreds of thousands of troops, but whose UN and EU nation-building experience you’d think would have informed her that waiting around for Europe to help out is a waste of time. This astonishingly uninformative article, while taking a couple of swipes at Bush policies, fails to mention Bush’s counterinsurgency success in Iraq; the fact that its architect, Gen. David Petraeus, is now in charge of Afghanistan. The real question raised by this article is why a major American newspaper … currently bogged down in a considerable quagmire of its own … would want to jump into the quagmire of quagmirism again.
6
POPSDept. of Defense Releases new War Strategy Manual Anyway, I learned today that more than 250,000 people have downloaded the manual in three weeks. Those are New York Times bestselling numbers. And it says something about how much people are looking at this manual. Some authors toil for years for such numbers. So the military is considering publishing the manual and selling it in bookstores, just as it did for 3-0. If you want to check it out, See above link and scroll down to last sentence.
9
POPSBush the arrogant Politically, these developments raise two questions: Which candidate to succeed Bush benefits most by the events of recent weeks? And which candidate, if either, would have the strength to roll back these expansions of presidential power if elected?" "These are not abstractions. They are the legacy of this grim epoch, one that should be equally offensive to conservatives and liberals. George Bush promised humility and delivered arrogance. The next president must not."
0
POPSThe Difference of Seven years I thought this article was a great example of what a nation can do in the in the scope of one presidency with different types of motivation. What will the United States use for motivation in the next Presidency?
0
POPSWhat will Obama do? This piece seems a logical bit to remember in the coming months. It is hero time in America and there is no one we may fall back on as fully as ourselves and in doing so support a creative President in his agenda with his choice for the second seat. We have seen what evil does when it sits in the second seat. Lets see what good can do.
3
POPSHope In The Unseen "There are so many good reasons to finish our nation-building in Iraq and resume our nation-building in America, but none more than this: There’s something wrong when so much of an American child’s future is riding on the bounce of a ping-pong ball."
1
POPSCommon Propaganda (30s and 40s) a reissue of a classic New Deal documentary, The River (1938), prompted Washington Post critic Philip Kennicott to write that “watching it 70 years later on a new Naxos DVD feels a little creepy.…There are moments, especially involving tractors (the great fetish object of 20th-century propagandists), when you are certain that this film could have been produced in one of the political film mills of the totalitarian states of Europe.”
1
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update