See it. Eerily presages current events. When you hear “communism,” think “Islamic fundamentalism.” When it’s the ‘trial’ of Lt. Milo Rudelovich, think of the poor bastards in Guantanamo and elsewhere. When you see the courage of a few public officials in opposing McCarthy, ……well, I wish I could tell you of someone to think of today.
And when you hear Murrow’s speech, be reminded to NOT EVEN THINK OF getting your news from commercial TV (the Daily Show excepted, of course).
According to the credits, George Clooney did everything on this film short of making sandwiches for the crew; if true, brilliant!
And finally, since I was around at the time this film takes place, I can confirm that it isn’t just the technological limits of video at the time - real life was actually in black-and-white back then.
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- Morality: 2012: Online Only Video: The New Yorker - The social and cultural psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks with Henry Finder about the five foundations of morality, and why liberals often fail to get their message across. From ?2012: Stories from the Near Future,? the 2007 New Yorker Conference.
- Life With Alacrity: Community by the Numbers, Part II: Personal Circles - Unlike the group limits, personal limits actually measure something different: the number of connections that an individual can hold. They're yet another thing that you must consider when thinking about communities of people. (I'm looking for more info on Familiar Strangers).
- Findings - For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It - NYTimes.com - "Religious people, he said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God?s wrath, but because they?ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy." . . . "So what?s a heathen to do in 2009? Dr. McCullough?s advice is to try replicating some of the religious mechanisms that seem to improve self-control, like private meditation or public involvement with an organization that has strong ideals."
- Single Spot Camping - SingleSpotCamping.com? is a brand new website which offers all land- and lot owners to present their own "single-spot-camping". The idea is: Anyone who owns land (it can even consist of your garage entrance) and would like to welcome one or a couple of camping guests are welcome to connect to www.singelspotcamping.com.
- Lunch Break, Red Bank, NJ - If you're looking to make an end-of-year donation, you could do worse than Red Bank's Lunch Break. These guys need a website overhaul, badly. No online donations and I had to use google to find out whether or not my donation was tax-deductible.
- Review: Radioshift Touch for iPhone | iPhone Central | Macworld - listen to radio stations on your iphone
- EveryTrail - iPhone Application - With this geotracking application, you can record your movements, take geotagged photos, make notes and immediately upload it all to EveryTrail, the leading online community for travel storytelling
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- What is Equally Shared Parenting? - Equally sharing the care of your children with your partner is about balancing your life, balancing your family's collective life and sharing equally in the joys of raising a family.
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compelling review. can’t wait to check it out
Quick, Chris! Attack Jim. Tell him that there are no historical parallels to President Bush or our times. We’ve never been involved in an intractable guerilla insurgency in a foreign land (like Vietnam). We’ve always condoned torture of POWs (like in WWs I-II, Korea, etc.). We’ve never been lied to by our President in order to cover up criminal misdeeds (like Watergate). The government has never used fear, uncertainty and doubt to quash dissent (like HUAC/McCarthy).
ky
ky
your crazy dude.
i have alway felt that ALL politicians are not worthy of my trust. i hate race and party. i love people and true leaders.
my defense of W, as poor as it has been, is more because it seem as though the attacks on him are quite extreem and rely heavily on the lies of some other untrustworthy scum politician and/or news media. so i guess i have been feeling sorry for him because his aggressors are equally horrific.
what is this blog going to reflect when the next bill clinton gets elected? my fear is that regardless of the mistakes being made there will be those who applaud him based only on him being a democrat.
and still, there are those who whether you choose to believe it or not support W and the liberation of iraq, including iraqi people.
and i agree, those islamic terrorists down at guantanamo are “bastards”.
and why not ask the academic community while i can,
wouldnt saadams rule be considered a strong example of mccarthyism? and if so, to what end would you support its erradication?
i love people and true leaders.
And you consider W a “true leader”?! Whatever you’re smoking, I want some of that.
my defense of W, as poor as it has been, is more because it seem as though the attacks on him are quite extreem and rely heavily on the lies of some other untrustworthy scum politician and/or news media.
So you’re saying that when you have refused to accept the 9/11 Commission’s assertion of NO LINK between Iraq and 9/11, that you were simply refusing to believe “untrustorthy scum”?
so i guess i have been feeling sorry for him because his aggressors are equally horrific.
OMG! You feel SORRY for W? You feel sorry for someone who fought tooth and nail to get us into a war in Iraq under false pretenses, costing us now over 2,000 military deaths, 15,000 American casualties, and perhaps 30,000-100,000 Iraqi deaths, not to mention $2-300 billion. You feel sorry for the head of an administration that has gutted the EPA, withdrawn the US from several international treaties (Kyoto, Internation Criminal Court, etc.), put partisanship over science (e.g., at the FDA), etc.? WORST. PRESIDENT. EVAR. And you feel sorry for him?
what is this blog going to reflect when the next bill clinton gets elected?
Man, when you see no way to defend W, you always seem to fall back to Clinton bashing. We’re five years into total domination by Republicans in all branches of government. Please don’t try to distract us with Clinton.
Besides, I’m arguing against lies and stupidity. Sure, Clinton lied about getting a hummer, but W lied TO GET US INTO A WAR. A war which people like you love to “support” without actually going to fight it yourself.
my fear is that regardless of the mistakes being made there will be those who applaud him based only on him being a democrat.
Chris, here’s something you probably won’t believe, but I never voted for Clinton. Yes, I did vote, but not for the Democrat nor for the Republican. So I think it’s time you retire this angle. I’m not a Clintonista.
and still, there are those who whether you choose to believe it or not support W and the liberation of iraq, including iraqi people.
But you never seem to be able to ask “at what cost?” How far do we go to export American democracy to regions who don’t want it? If you’re so fired up about getting rid of dictators, why aren’t you clamoring to invade Cuba? Castro’s a bastard, no doubt. Why aren’t you arguing for us to invade all the African countries with repressive regimes? Why just Iraq? Oh, BECAUSE IRAQ HAS OIL.
those islamic terrorists down at guantanamo are “bastards”.
Then here’s an idea. Why not charge them with their crimes and try them in a court of law (maybe the ICC, if we hadn’t opposed it)? If they’re really so bad and we have evidence to prove it, what’s wrong with showing the world how a real democracy works? Aren’t we better than countries that trump up charges on people and throw them in jail without a trial?
wouldnt saadams rule be considered a strong example of mccarthyism?
Um, huh?
and if so, to what end would you support its erradication?
At the current cost, no. I’ve answered this before. I would esp. not support removing him with no coherent plan for occupation. Do you not ever consider that we could have taken him out in 1991? Why didn’t Bush I do that? Because he knew we couldn’t win. He knew that the country would dissolve into civil war no matter how long we stayed in for the sniping. Bush I was at least that smart. He listened to his intelligence community. He did what was necessary to expel Saddam from Kuwait, and that was all. Oh, and he did it with international cooperation and support. What a difference.
ky
“i love people and true leaders.”
i never mentioned W so let the record show that the first thing you thought of after reading about love and true leaders was W.
“So you’re saying that when you have refused to accept the 9/11 Commission’s assertion of NO LINK between Iraq and 9/11, that you were simply refusing to believe “untrustorthy scum”?”
yes, i am a free man and , yes.
“OMG! You feel SORRY for W? You feel sorry for someone who fought tooth and nail to get us into a war in Iraq under false pretenses, costing us now over 2,000 military deaths, 15,000 American casualties, and perhaps 30,000-100,000 Iraqi deaths, not to mention $2-300 billion. You feel sorry for the head of an administration that has gutted the EPA, withdrawn the US from several international treaties (Kyoto, Internation Criminal Court, etc.), put partisanship over science (e.g., at the FDA), etc.? WORST. PRESIDENT. EVAR. And you feel sorry for him?”
holy cow are you ever good at messing with numbers. maybe you should be a salesman or better yet, a news writer.
“Sure, Clinton lied about getting a hummer, but W lied TO GET US INTO A WAR. A war which people like you love to “support” without actually going to fight it yourself.”
well then, once again you have decided to lead us to believe that the only misleading clinton did was in regards to the blow job, and you bought it. seriously, are you comparing the blow job lies to the war against iraq, a war which the blown himself supported? and am i not allowed to harbor an opinion on the war unless i participate in it? if so, then i call a cease fire and that we should assume that the opinions of the enlisted US military personell are what we should take as truth about the war. maybe if you stood in front of an islamic bullet you might have another perspective on war against shit.
“How far do we go to export American democracy to regions who don’t want it? If you’re so fired up about getting rid of dictators, why aren’t you clamoring to invade Cuba? Castro’s a bastard, no doubt. Why aren’t you arguing for us to invade all the African countries with repressive regimes? Why just Iraq? Oh, BECAUSE IRAQ HAS OIL.”
as far as we need to. did anyone ask how far we need to go to get rid of hitler? would you have preferred we not participate? castro is in the palm of our hand so you dont need to worry about him and africa is a freaking mess so lets get the middle east out of the way and work on africa later. as for oil, it pays for that 2-300 billion dollar price tag your bitchin about so that takes care of that.
“Then here’s an idea. Why not charge them with their crimes and try them in a court of law (maybe the ICC, if we hadn’t opposed it)? If they’re really so bad and we have evidence to prove it, what’s wrong with showing the world how a real democracy works? Aren’t we better than countries that trump up charges on people and throw them in jail without a trial?”
because they are prisoners of war and not US citizens. how would you feel if the US soldiers abducted in war were all beheaded because that was the law of the country? there re rules in war and good thing for us we are obeying them. i seriously cannot believe that there are Americans , on this blog no less, who feel sorry for the prisoners in guantanamo. try to remember that they hate you and want to kill you and your pets even though you cry for their freedom.
“By the time Morrow attacked McCarthy, his influence already was declining.
The Korean War ended in 1953, removing one source of anti-communist fever.
Democrat Harry Truman was president when McCarthy entered the Senate. But by
1953, Eisenhower was in office, meaning that McCarthy’s allegations of
communism in the government were essentially an attack against his own
party.
As declassified Soviet archives show, there was a
vast communist spy ring, with many liberals now acknowledging that such Cold
War figures as Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg were spies. One suspected
communist defended by Morrow, his friend and former mentor Laurence Duggan,
also turned out to be a Soviet agent.”
“
holy cow are you ever good at messing with numbers. maybe you should be a salesman or better yet, a news writer.
Chris, please be explicit and tell me which numbers are wrong.
And if you refuse to accept the findings of the 9/11 commission, you say you hate all politicians, and you repeatedly call the media “scum,” then just where do you the information you believe?
well then, once again you have decided to lead us to believe that the only misleading clinton did was in regards to the blow job, and you bought it.
What other lies are you referring to? How many wars were created by those lies? How many people died in those wars?
and am i not allowed to harbor an opinion on the war unless i participate in it?
I have an opinion on the war, but I do not participate in it. What I’m saying is that if you SUPPORT the war so much — if you really believe it’s worth the loss of so many other’s lives — then why won’t you put yours on the line, too? If nothing else, I’d think you’d consider paying your taxes to support the troops the patriotic thing to do, but, no, your tax cut is more important to you. OTOH, the administration hasn’t asked people to sacrifice anything to support the war, either.
maybe if you stood in front of an islamic bullet you might have another perspective on war against shit.
Sigh. Chris, I never stated that we shouldn’t be at war with those who would do us harm. In fact, that’s exactly who I think we should be fighting. But, you see, the problem with W’s war in Iraq is that the people we should have been after were never there. They are now, of course, because for every insurgent/rebel/terrorist we kill there, we create three more.
I’m simply against unjust, unnecessary wars created by chickenhawk war mongers and sold to the public on lies.
as far as we need to.
Really? Are you also of the opinion that we would have “won” in Vietnam if we had simply been willing to stick it out a little longer? Was 25 years there not quite enough?
And at what price? How many Americans need to die before we claim victory? If the war is still going there when your kids are old enough to enlist, will you encourgage them to go fight?
did anyone ask how far we need to go to get rid of hitler? would you have preferred we not participate? castro is in the palm of our hand so you dont need to worry about him
Hmm, let’s see. On the one hand, Germany had already rolled into Poland and had declared war on our allies in Europe and German U-boats were sinking our merchant marines in the Atlantic. So we and our allies were under direct assault. Iraq, however, was, as you so quaintly put it, “in the palm of our hand” and under such severe sanctions that they could never have reconstituted a WMD program.
Again, Chrissy-pooh, I’m not against war when there’s a clear and present danger to the US or our allies. But that didn’t exist in Iraq. There was no need to invade that country. I’m simply floored that you haven’t been able to see this yet. It’s truly futile to try to argue with you. Either you can’t unswallow the lies of this administration or you simple gainsay whatever I say.
africa is a freaking mess so lets get the middle east out of the way and work on africa later.
Very humanitarian of you.
as for oil, it pays for that 2-300 billion dollar price tag your bitchin about so that takes care of that.
I don’t believe it does, but I can’t back that up. However, I’m wondering if you’re now conceding the price tag on the war that you earlier refuted?
because they are prisoners of war and not US citizens.
Actually, the Bush administration categorizes them as “unlawful enemy combatants” so that we can hold them without cause or trial and then torture them, usually by moving them to countries like Egypt or Uzbekistan. If they were POWs, they’d be under the protection of the Geneva Convention, which AG Gonzales calls “quaint.”
there re rules in war and good thing for us we are obeying them.
Well, Chris, there are supposed to be rules in war, e.g., the Geneva Convention, but we are not following them. To say otherwise is to deny the Bush administration’s own policies explictly stating that the GC doesn’t apply and that we don’t have to abide by them. For that, we are weaker and our own soldiers are more at risk should they be captured. If you’d like to argue more on this point, I’d suggest you take it up with the Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain, who was himself a POW in Vietnam and knows what it’s like to be tortured for five years.
i seriously cannot believe that there are Americans , on this blog no less, who feel sorry for the prisoners in guantanamo
Who said anything about feeling sorry for them. I’m suggesting that they be charged, tried, and imprisoned if guilty.
try to remember that they hate you and want to kill you and your pets even though you cry for their freedom.
Ha-ha. Boy, Chris, you take rhetoric to extremes, don’t you. Who said I cry for anyone’s freedom. You love to paint me as some bend-over patsy for terrorists, but it’s not true. The difference between us is that you think that BushCo’s wars and policies are effective and I do not. We haven’t even broached the subject of the fact that indictments have come over their efforts to cover up their lies leading to the start of this war. When they’re all in jail, I suppose it will be a bit easier for me to argue my points, but it will be so late by then to recover all that we’ve lost and continue to lose.
ky
Chrissy-pooh?
ok loook..
even if everything you say is true, what are we suppoded to do? our men and women are not attacking the iraqi people, they are trying to help them establish a government free from tyranny. so you can call it a war but it seems to me to be more of a dangerous diplomatic mission that cannot be abandoned now, even if i concede 100% and agree that W was wrong to go into iraq, which i dont.
you can pretty much google as many numbers as you want. there are some who say those numbers are inflated and others who say they are too low. point is, i’m not sure we will ever know the number of civilian lives lost as a DIRECT result of the war in iraq versus how many would have died anyway having been there regardless of whether or not we were at war.
you can also find quite easily on your own plenty of websites illustrating clintons shortcomings that have cost american blood to be spilled both here and abroad. just google “Richard Miniter’s New York Times bestseller, “Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror.”, among other things.
i did not recieve a tax cut, at least i dont recall getting one.
if the military needed more men i am sure i would give serious consideration to serving.
i am not copping out but simply did not choose a military carreer.
how can you say that there is no “clear and present danger” to the US? there most certainly is and iraq gave us absolutely no reason to believe that they were not a threat. they did not cooperate with our resonable demands to insure our safety. and for the record, imo, every day that i get on a crowded ferry heading into the disgusting shithole know as NYC i take my life into my hands. everyday i kiss my family goodbye and as i walk down the stairs i cant help but think that today i could become a victem of some fucking shithead islamic fucknut.
i liked your “humanitaian” coment. i asked for that one and got a good laugh as i am sure others did.
the price tag, i have no idea but there is no doubt at all that the oil over in iraq could pay for it many thousands of times over.
i dont think i could torture anyone but i find it very easy to turn away as one of the guys who wants me to die short of seeing my children grow up gets an electrode to the testicles.
the war is clearly an utter failure for the bush administration but they understand that they are in it way too deep to just pull out now. they appear to be determined to finish what they started, setting up a new government in iraq. i still hope and pray that in the end we wil look back and agree that we are happy it is over and happy for the freely elected leaders of the new iraq.
peace out dude.
Chris,
I like your stuff much better when you write it yourself.
thanks kent,
believe it or not i really needed that.
i realize the how well read almost everyone here is and sometimes i am way off base about stuff but i can assure you that my ramblings are probably a very close resemblence of the average joe’s take on things. i do not like to consider myslef an average joe but more more of an irregular joe however when it comes to the complexities of politics and spelling i am way below average.
Chris,
Sorry, that was not really meant as a compliment. I was referring to your post above. Posting someone else’s words with your name on them is not honest for either of you. If someone has something to say, they should be sufficiently proud of it to put their own name on it. When what’s posted as your own stuff is not truly yours, it’s no more correct - but much less genuine - than when you write it yourself. Keep it real, as they say.
thats why i put it in quotes, since most of what we say is a regurgitation of something we ingested from someone else.
what are we suppoded to do?
How about let’s back up for just a minute and determine if laws were broken and lies were told to get us there. If the people “leading” us in the current conflict are found to have been at fault, let’s get them out of power and put in place someone we can trust to tell us the truth. This President continues to tell us that there are MORE Iraqi battalions ready to stand alone than there were one year ago, but the US commanders in Iraq tell us that there were three last year and only one this year. You see, the lies keep coming. That’s why it’s important to first resolve just what deceit was used to get us fighting in the first place.
there are some who say those numbers are inflated
Which numbers? You can’t argue with the more than 2,000 dead American servicemen or the 2-300 billion it’s costing us.
i’m not sure we will ever know the number of civilian lives lost as a DIRECT result of the war in iraq versus how many would have died anyway having been there regardless of whether or not we were at war.
By that rationale, we could nuke the whole country and just say “hey, if we’d occupied the place for 100 years, probably just as many people would have died eventually.” That’s a piss-poor argument. If the US was being occupied by a foriegn army and as many Americans were dying in this country every day as the result of crime and civil war, I think you’d be less willing to posit that theory to give the benefit of the doubt to your occupiers.
you can also find quite easily on your own plenty of websites illustrating clintons shortcomings that have cost american blood to be spilled
Hey, Chris, perhaps you haven’t picked up on this yet, BUT WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT BILL CLINTON. We’re keeping the focus on the guy who’s been in charge FOR FIVE YEARS now.
i did not recieve a tax cut, at least i dont recall getting one.
Um, WTF? You clearly stated “I got my tax cut” in a recent post to explain why W was such a great President. Were you lying then or are you lying now? (Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that. You don’t have to answer. :-)
if the military needed more men i am sure i would give serious consideration to serving.
Do you even read the news? All the services’s recruitment numbers are way, way down. If you won’t join up, why won’t you at least demand that the federal govt. roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy in order to provide body and truck armor for the troops?
how can you say that there is no “clear and present danger” to the US? there most certainly is and iraq gave us absolutely no reason to believe that they were not a threat.
Boy, that is one helluva argument. You know who else hasn’t proved that they’re no threat to us? Nigeria. Let’s bomb the f*&!ers. And those bastards in East Timor — I bet they have it out for us. Oh, you mean those countries had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11? NEITHER DID IRAQ. But, of course, you don’t believe the “lies” of the 9/11 Commission. Just where do you get your information?
everyday i kiss my family goodbye and as i walk down the stairs i cant help but think that today i could become a victem of some fucking shithead islamic fucknut.
What other countries would you have us invade to make you feel better about your commute? Would you rather spend $6 billion a day fighting in Iraq or that much money ensuring that there are enough first responders (police, fire fighters) in NYC to monitor public transportation and such?
i dont think i could torture anyone but i find it very easy to turn away as one of the guys who wants me to die short of seeing my children grow up gets an electrode to the testicles.
Chris, I understand your anger. I really do. I have kid(s), too. But running around the world and invading countries to get their oil doesn’t wipe out terrorism. Using lies to justify American imperialism just makes us look worse and makes the world hate us more. The US is supposed to stand for something, and torture is not one of them. Even the CIA (Porter Goss, included) knows that torture doesn’t get you good or timely intelligence. It just tortures. It doesn’t further our efforts to defeat the enemy.
the war is clearly an utter failure for the bush administration but they understand that they are in it way too deep to just pull out now.
See my earlier comment on how we got involved. If they messed up getting us into this, then how can they get us out of it? If they continue to lie and deny reality, how can they be trusted to do the Right Thing? Would they even know the Right Thing if it bit them on the ass?
Going back to your earlier point on liking “good leaders,” do you consider this administration full of “good leaders”? Isn’t that what we need to fix the problems W has created?
ky
The difference between Chris and Ken here is not who has the “correct” opinion (personally, I can agree with aspects of both of their polar feelings), but in how they do their arguing. Chris, unfortunately for you, Ken is obviously a voracious reader of political rhetoric and policy and statistcal “fact”.
((I put “fact” in quotes because I am automatically skeptical of any statistic… My personal definition of statistic is the choosing of specific facts and ommission of others in order to propogate an argument through misdirection. Not saying that this is what you are doing, Ken… but to some degree, it is.))
Both Ken and Chris are arguing from genuine, heart-felt opinions… And, in Ken’s being so well read and ready to counter-attack all of Chris’ arguments with quotes and “facts”, and with Chris’strongest arguments relying primarily on only his genuine, heart-felt opinions, Chris will never win the DEBATE. Chris, I’m sure you have left many of these comment readings feeling that you have lost some argument though you can’t understand why since your opinion has not changed one bit.
Meanwhile, Ken, you have your demons. You are focussing all your hatred for Bush and his administration and the direction our country has been moving on Chris, who you seem to see as somehow an embodiment of all this since he (how dare he) holds opinions favorable to what you hate.
It comes down to, you are both good guys with different opinions on explosive topics. Chris has got a heart of gold who I would pick early for my island if we ever had to restart the world… For one thing, he’d catch us some good fish.
Anyway, for what it’s worth… that’s how I see this debate, regardless of the opinions held within.
“…this post is clean…”
amen