Arthur Silber:

If the fallout from the Foley scandal makes it appear inevitable that the Democrats will take the House, the Iran card may be the surest one, and perhaps the only one, that the Bush administration has left to play. I am certain that the sons of bitches who call the shots in the administration have no intention of letting some annoying, whining pipsqueaks (as they undoubtedly view them) peer over their shoulders during the last two years of their reign, as they attempt to ensure American and Republican domination of this country and the world for the foreseeable future.

Ty Webb wrote:Virtually every historian of any repute, as well as past and current intelligence experts, have called Stinnett's book a steaming load, in so many words.

"Virtually every historian"- that's a considerable exaggeration. It is not only Stinnett who backed up his suspicions about FDR, there was the Toland book and another by a British author whose name I can't remember, and I've got a documentary that goes into the code breaking allegations.

I'm not saying with any certainty that FDR knew- PH is not as suspect a designed or allowed or fabricated provocation as Gulf of Tonkin or the Maine. I'll say I'll weight it at 65% probability that FDR wasn't surprised and 35% he was. It would be hard to convict FDR in a court of law over what is in the public record, I'll grant you that.

This is not a solid theory, bob. I'm more inclined to believe some of the nuttier shit about our present day conflicts. I know this is what you do, so if you want to continue to believe it, go ahead. But it has zero legs.

You know it has more than zero legs. The McCollum memo is half a leg right there. I don't care who agrees with me, but you are not being honest if you say there isn't some reasonable suspicion about what went on in the weeks before Pearl Harbor.

Reasonable? That's a pretty big bucket.

The evidence that the McCollum memo was even read by FDR or someone high in his administration is circumstantial. And if it says anything about executive malfeasance, that memo argues more that FDR may have enacted a strategy to goad the Japanese into an aggressive act (as McCollum recommended).

That is something entirely different than saying he knew the specifics of an impending attack on Americans and allowed them to be killed without the chance of defending themselves. (And that reminds me of my previous argument - a warned and ready Pearl Harbor being attacked would've accomplished the same political ends. There's no logical reason to allow a total ambush as opposed to a surprise attack that is discovered and resisted.)

I don't think the McCollum memo by itself is half a leg. Like most other bits of "evidence" in Stinnett's book, it relies on circumstance and coincidence for an air of validity. The same is true for all the signals and code intelligence that the theorists use as support. None of it pans out. A few gaps in the record aren't the same thing as proof of a conspiracy.

There's no doubt FDR was sly and may have manipulated matters in order to get America into the war (and this was a bad thing?). But allowing thousands of Americans to die in a surprise attack? And, most outrageous of all, at the behest of corporate masters? There's very, VERY little to support such a fantastic idea.

cursedby11 wrote:
Anyways I'm sure you've heard the Problem, reaction, solution theory. Bob or anyone, can you plug the Iran situation into that 3 part phase?

For instance, what group may be creating a problem and offering a solution to the extent of survival from their solution?

A potential Iran conflict can be molded into the Hegelian dialectic template, definitely. The money masters and the arms industry, to make a screwy analogy, are like Vince McMahon and the WWF- they're selling tickets to dumbasses who will pay their taxes and send their children to die for a flag that is stamped on one opposing military or another; it's as much like theater as pro wrestling, a jingoist mania.

Average Americans don't hate average Iranians and want to kill them or impose restrictions on their nuclear capabilities with bombs- the people who provide the credit to fund wars and the people who sell the bombs and profit from the market disruptions and crave a police state want to kill Iranians. Sure, there are mental cases in Israel and the US who buy the fear rhetoric, and there are demagogues who exploit that fear, and that's what drives the ticket sales for wars, the nut jobs who think that whole masses of people have hearts of evil and have suicidal vendettas against superpowers that they are severely overmatched against.

Complete fucking retards in the US get their brains fried over and over by war hysteria. What are you going to do? These Americans have been so sheltered and protected in this incredibly rich and safe country for so long, and have so little firsthand knowledge of living in a real war zone, that the media can play them like a fiddle, stoke their racist xenophobic hate and line them up for seats at the pro wrestling match. These poor souls refuse to make the simple leap to putting themselves in the shoes an Iranian- to do so would be 'un-American'. They really can't answer the question of why Iran would ever fire a nuke at another nation, ensuring it's own destruction, so they are fed lies about Islam wanting to 'wipe Israel off the map' or 'craving the apocalypse'.

What are you going to do?

Hegelian dialectic, control all sides, profit from all sides, thesis antithesis synthesis.

I've noticed consolidation in the media lately. A unification, if you will, of religion, race, class, sub cultures, gender, etc. Yea, it's been there for awhile. I've noticed indirect attacks against certain groups. Look to see who's controlling the media.

And the indirect attacks are accompanied by direct attacks, but I don't see the unification you refer to, unless you're referring to a unification behind the premise that 'white, capitalist and christian makes right'- I see the opposite, a media on a mission to make Americans scared, tempermental and suspicious of all our neighbors, both internally and externally. I would love to see a unification around class and a desire for peace and an equitable economy that smashed every consideration of race, gender and religion into shrapnel. The media pushes people to ally against their best interests by training them to hate the wrong people. Hate the greedy, the lazy, the cheaters, the takers, the war makers, and the exploiters, and then stop. Make that your operating system, and everyone else who does that with you will grow into a force that opposes the war profiteers and their hegelian manipulations.

clocker bob wrote:These poor souls refuse to make the simple leap to putting themselves in the shoes an Iranian- to do so would be 'un-American'. They really can't answer the question of why Iran would ever fire a nuke at another nation, ensuring it's own destruction, so they are fed lies about Islam wanting to 'wipe Israel off the map' or 'craving the apocalypse'.

Well said. Fear sells papers (or cable subscriptions or banner ads, etc, etc). The simple soundbite is comforting in its pure emotion.

I heard someone recently say that the Western media isn't covering Islam, they're covering issues that also happen to involve Islam. It was an important distinction, because it reveals the inadequacies in the journalists and pundits who are making inferences and judgements about a culture and people they don't understand.

Ty Webb wrote:I heard someone recently say that the Western media isn't covering Islam, they're covering issues that also happen to involve Islam. It was an important distinction, because it reveals the inadequacies in the journalists and pundits who are making inferences and judgements about a culture and people they don't understand.

Obviously, mullahs and ayatollahs in the Islamic world manage their populations through fear and demagoguery, the same as our morally bankrupt ruling class. That doesn't excuse those who fall for it, because the truth is not buried, it's just a matter of filtering and focus for any of us. I don't want to get up on some moral high horse, since I stumble daily, but it amazes me that I, as an areligious person, seem to have a better grasp than religious people on the idea that however we got here ( maybe a 'God', I don't know ), we were not put here to hate and fear each other over our differences. That's learned behavior, and we know who the teachers are.

There's no doubt FDR was sly and may have manipulated matters in order to get America into the war (and this was a bad thing?).

Yes! it was bad. It was bad when Bush did it too. Conspiring to create a situation that makes entering an unpopular war inevitable is bad presidenting. People died because of his betrayal. You can argue about a greater good, but fdr's responsibility was to the people who elected him, not the world.

Current abuse stems largely from his precedent, and the powers that Bush abuses were forged by FDR's contempt.

El Protoolio wrote:I found this in the comment section from a Nation blog Caix linked to earlier today-

"I R A N

W A R

P L A N

R E V E A L E D

S I N K I N G

O F

U S S

E N T E R P R I S E

I M M I N E N T

protoolio,
i think that's a sick thing to just throw out there, even as a quote. why even post that? we already have one clocker bob; i don't need 2.

as connor said, "retarded."

only here wrote:protoolio,
i think that's a sick thing to just throw out there, even as a quote. why even post that? we already have one clocker bob; i don't need 2.

as connor said, "retarded."

Another traffic cop. Are you going to write protoolio a ticket for offending your sensibilities, or are you capable of deciding for yourself ( and not for the entire board ) which rumors you want to read and which you don't?

When this guy:



is promising an October surprise to his evil friends, and his evil friends are defense contractors and oil companies that would benefit from more war, I like the fact that people can tell the Bush regime that we might not fall for another fake attack to promote more war. All a rumor like that can do is potentially change their plans.

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections"

Johnny 13 wrote:Current abuse stems largely from his precedent, and the powers that Bush abuses were forged by FDR's contempt.

Only by those who would compare World War II and Bush's fraudulent "war on terror."

Bush's abuses go light years beyond FDR's alleged transgressions (I still haven't admitted FDR goaded and manipulated this country into war; I said "may") and were perpetrated under completely different circumstances.

And your post implies a president's duty is to reflect the opinions of a majority of his country's citizens. An extremely risky criterion to set in stone.