In depth analysis of what we're doing as a country (NSR):

[str8line]

Wow, insightful post legoskier.

Kind of sad that your post has to be framed by Blurred and my personal attacks.

[Blurred Elevens]

Originally posted by str8line
Wow, insightful post legoskier.

Kind of sad that your post has to be framed by Blurred and my personal attacks.

Gordo. I'm going to apologise to you, for personal reasons. (I'm trying to stay close to the Lord, and my meds are kicking in)

You came into an argument that you probably now see is basically the continuation of another thread. (WMD thread)

If you want to see my view on things, ignore all the flames in that thread, read it, interpret it, and than read it again and you may see my point.

If you still have about an hour to spare, here is my response to you saying that I'm an asshole.....enjoy.

http://forum.powdermag.com/cgi-bin/u...c;f=1;t=023724

[str8line]

I appreciate the apology Blurred.

I'm gonna have to check your link few days cause I'm being summoned by the wife(and kid). I'll be away for a few days so I'll get back to you. BTW, that's my old e-mail address.

[TJ.Brk]

Originally posted by Dexter Rutecki


[/B]

Yes, Republicans have never made issue of such character issues. I'd love to see what would have happened if Clinton had had a DUI--the Republicans would be going apeshit.
And it is just one indication of a hundred that he is a downright stupid man.

[/B]

Actually Dex. The elephant men did throw a fit over the Jackass man. The guy lied under oath while in office. But the biggest sin of all he made was getting a "little Bill" (new word for blowjob by Marine I detachment at DC) by an ugly fat chick. He was the President. Atleast Kennedy was doing Marilyn Monroe

All Clinton would of had to say was: "Hey, It was a Saturday. Hillary hasn't been giving me any since Chelsey was concieved. I was drunk. Had a bad case of the "Hey baby I got astro-turf in the back of my el-camino, beer goggles", and all would have been forgiven. And don't even get me started on the cigar deal. That's just sick What a waste of a good cuban

You know your fucked when your two main political partys have a clumsy elephant and a jackass as their party mascots. One is a big fat ouf that bulls through and falls on everything. The other can be seen on reruns of "Hee Haw"

And what is really screwed up is this country will be stuck voting for two complete idiots in Dean and Bush. Yet again another election where the people get fucked without the pleasure of a reach around

[TJ.Brk]

Originally posted by LegoSkier
“To give good counsel’s our appointed task
But spears and steeds are all the faith we ask;
With daggers we will make the earth blood red
And crowd the sky with lances overhead.”
- From the story of Jandal and the King of Yemen, Shahnameh (Persian Book of Kings).

I guess this is the real question here. Where is the good counsel here? The words you know in you heart to be real truth and real wisdom. The ones that ring with compassion and understanding but are also not afraid to seek out and fight for justice. Are “spears and steeds” all the faith we need in this age or could there be something more?
Shortly before we invaded Iraq, I put up a long post in the PMag forum in one of these political threads detailing why I thought this war was a correct decision (I still have it and can repost it if need be). My goal with that post was to hint at the complexities of the situation and the possible alternate reasons why it might be a good idea. While I think that in the long run it may still prove a worth while undertaking I am very troubled at the continued lack of understanding of the situation by the American public and the lack of any showing by the administration as to their proper understanding of the situation.
Let me be blunt here. The Muslim faith is in trouble. It is struggling. It is going to change drastically in the coming years and the only question is whether it will change peacefully and to the betterment of all who worship under its Mosques or whether it will die a violent death taking millions of bystanders with it. And America’s war on terrorism is our nation’s involvement in that struggle and should be framed as such with the requisite action, compassion, and understanding. To go about this war on terror as just the effort to keep Americans safe is a potentially very damaging road to take. My most sincere hope every day is that someone in the administration knows and believes this and gives voice to this.
Because of accidents of history, politics, geology, technology, and economics, Islam is at this time structured in a way incompatible with the modern 21st century connected world. It is very much a medieval society where Ayatollah’s, Sheiks, and Princes rule the tribal landscape and their word is divine law piped through them directly from Mohammed himself. Then they take their oil riches from the west and use it to beat down the poor of their societies and to drill into the heads of their privileged youth the teachings of a tyrannical version of their faith leaving both wholly unable to accept or deal with the modern world growing around them at both matters of practical skill and faith. This works fine if the situation is as I said before, a tribal landscape. One where distinct kingdoms exist as islands of civilization and interact with one another at the time scale of the camel and the horse. But now as we stand here the last of the islands are swallowed up and the time scales are now that of the photon and electron and the children of Mohammed are left behind to ponder their situation in the streets crowded around the nearest power hungry Mullah looking to gain a few more foot soldiers to fight along side his own personal demons when all they want is something productive to do to feel worth while to themselves and to their god.
As someone who was raised in the Sufi traditions and the great works of love, compassion, and knowledge of Gilgamesh, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, and Mullah Nasrudin this makes me beyond sick. But I am not a citizen of these diseased kingdoms. I am an American. All I can do is my part to guide my own country to help out in the healing where possible and to look out for such similar diseases taking root among my own streets and under my own roofs. Sometimes this will mean and invasion, sometimes it will mean standing idly by. Sometimes it will mean ruling with an iron fist and sometimes it will mean getting hit hard and still standing there with arms open ready to give unflinching love. But whatever the action and circumstance, I hope and pray that America never looses sight of the larger struggle the victory of which is rooted in the very truths this country was founded upon and the victory of which will be the only real victory in the war on terror.

Well said Lego. But what is lacking in Western culture as a whole is basic understand of Muslim history, and visa versa. If you ask anyone on this board about "the Great Flight". The significance of "Mecca and Medina in relation to Mohammad, or of the split in the Muslim faith forming the two sects. Not many people would know.

And I find that not only the Muslim faith is at a crossroads at this time. I see Christianity facing it as well. Just look at Catholicism in relation to modern day events. Having spent time in that part of the world, and since 911 here. I am seeing more of a closed fist stance by all party's concerned when it comes to Islam and Christianity. When the teachings of the Koran and Bible only teach of the open hand of brotherhood and peace. But those teachings are being bent and munipulated by the powers that be by boths sides as a tool for distructive power and personal vendetta.

Oh and for those that feel military minds are just one sided thinkers. You can't be farther from the truth. You would be surprised at how enlightend military men and women can be when faced with their own mortality. You would be shocked to realize how much most of us are able to think outside of the box to understand anothers viewpoint. However, sadly this enlightenment comes about more out of survival, than for a quest for knowledge. Either way there are positives to it.

[BurmaShave]

Three personality traits of George W. Bush are revealed in his statement "Bring 'em on!"

Ignorance: is revealed since he is not aware of the consequences of his statement. How many disgruntled Iraqis were motivated to take action against US soldiers by that statement?

Arrogance: is revealed since it is not his ass that is on the firing line.

Stupidity: is revealed by conducting a foreign policy like a grade school bully.

By embracing the right-wing Republican agenda, Bush has alienated a majority of the American public. This divisiveness is also evident in this forum.

What is needed is some humor. Check out the site listed here: http://cagle.slate.msn.com/

Just go, you'll see, and may even laugh.

[Grange]

Originally posted by lemon boy

I'd urge everyone to go back and re-read (or read if you haven't) both Animal Farm and 1984 (20yrs late but still chillingly accurate).

Read Animal Farm in highschool. Kind of sad when the horse was taken away to make some glue, but hey at least he brought some joy to a little boy or girl.

[bad_roo]

I saw the movie. Which one of the guys screwing a goat was meant to be Trotsky?

[Creamy Goodness]

Ya know I love the skiing part of this board, but some of the leftist opinions leave me scratching my folicle challenged head.

[Mcwop]

Originally posted by KQ
Okay...............an excerpt from an article (link below)

Prescott Bush, the late, aristocratic senator from Connecticut, and grandfather of George W Bush, was not only a good friend of Allen Dulles, CIA director, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and international business lawyer. He was also a client of Dulles' law firm. As such, he was the beneficiary of Dulles' miraculous ability to scrub the story of Bush's treasonous investments in the Third Reich out of the news media, where it might have interfered with Bush's political career . . . not to mention the presidential careers of his son and grandson.

Recently declassified US government documents, unearthed last October by investigative journalist John Buchanan at the New Hampshire Gazette, reveal that Prescott Bush's involvement in financing and arming the Nazis was more extensive than previously known. Not only was Bush managing director of the Union Banking Corporation, the American branch of Hitler's chief financier's banking network; but among the other companies where Bush was a director—and which were seized by the American government in 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act—were a shipping line which imported German spies; an energy company that supplied the Luftwaffe with high-ethyl fuel; and a steel company that employed Jewish slave labor from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Like all the other Bush scandals that have been swept under the rug in the privatized censorship of the corporate media, these revelations have been largely ignored, with the exception of a single article in the Associated Press. And there are those, even on the left, who question the current relevance of this information.

But Prescott Bush's dealings with the Nazis do more than illustrate a family pattern of genteel treason and war profiteering—from George Senior's sale of TOW missiles to Iran at the same time he was selling biological and chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, to Junior's zany misadventures in crony capitalism in present-day Iraq.

More disturbing by far are the many eerie parallels between Adolph Hitler and George W. Bush:

A conservative, authoritarian style, with public appearances in military uniform (which no previous American president has ever done while in office). Government by secrecy, propaganda and deception. Open assaults on labor unions and workers' rights. Preemptive war and militant nationalism. Contempt for international law and treaties. Suspiciously convenient "terrorist" attacks, to justify a police state and the suspension of liberties. A carefully manufactured image of "The Leader," who's still just a "regular guy" and a "moderate." "Freedom" as the rationale for every action. Fantasy economic growth, based on unprecedented budget deficits and massive military spending.

And a cold, pragmatic ideology of fascism—including the violent suppression of dissent and other human rights; the use of torture, assassination and concentration camps; and most important, Benito Mussolini's preferred definition of "fascism" as "corporatism, because it binds together the interests of corporations and the state."

By their fruits, you shall know them.

Paranoid Shift

And Gore's daddy voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So what? Do racist genes run throughout all of Gore's family?

[Dexter Rutecki]

Originally posted by bad_roo
I saw the movie. Which one of the guys screwing a goat was meant to be Trotsky?

The one with an ice-pick in his head.