You can please all the people some of the time......  you can please no one all the time... you can ...  ahh f that.

Ultimately someone is always going to be unhappy.  That is simply the way the world works.  Personally I am willing to be unhappy if I am in the vast minority.   The problem that I have is this.
Before we even begin to considder an option, we tear apart the presenter becuase of race, religion, political party, and thereby discredit them, before they even have a chance to speak.

Now you can hate on this as an example all you like, but think back about 2 weeks ago, prior to the report on Iraq from Gen. Petreaus.   I found it interesting that before the report was even written, only that he would be presenting it, it was already being slammed from every direction.

This is just an example of what I am talking about.   I think for each person it is different, but you should ask yourself, when does politics end and action begin?

QuoteI would vote for Hilary rather than Barack. I rather enjoyed most of the first two Clinton administrations and have seethed with all three Bush ones.

I will spare you the list of things I could complain about and leave you with one.   I was in Somalia 2 weeks before the "Black Hawk Down" Incident.    Clinton knew if he withdrew troops (which he did not have to do, fiscally or otherwise [I was pulled back to base, not redirected]), that there would be severe instability, and casualties.   This is the only major public information I can speak of however this is not an isolated incident.   Slick was very good at communicating to the people, very much like Reagan was.   The difference between the 2 narrows as you watch how people praise them.  It is almost like TV evangalists.   

I think my point is,  we, Americans, must either raise our standards by which we measure the calibre of our leaders, or be silent in the idiots we consistently elect into office.

Quote from: Skye on September 26, 2007, 12:35:19 PM
You can please all the people some of the time......  you can please no one all the time... you can ...  ahh f that.

I will spare you the list of things I could complain about and leave you with one.   I was in Somalia 2 weeks before the "Black Hawk Down" Incident.    Clinton knew if he withdrew troops (which he did not have to do, fiscally or otherwise [I was pulled back to base, not redirected]), that there would be severe instability, and casualties.   This is the only major public information I can speak of however this is not an isolated incident.   Slick was very good at communicating to the people, very much like Reagan was.   The difference between the 2 narrows as you watch how people praise them.  It is almost like TV evangalists.   

I think my point is,  we, Americans, must either raise our standards by which we measure the calibre of our leaders, or be silent in the idiots we consistently elect into office.

People like who they like. I presume you were not in the column ambushed and unsupported in Somalia, right?

I also know vets of both Iraqi wars/interventions that hate the administrations that authored those, and I spoz I was simply fortunate that when I was serving there were no armed interventions that involved me. Although I was appalled at the way Reagan used the death by bombing of Moammar Khadafy's infant son as something to crow about when American jets bombed Tripoli.

With a population exceeding 300 million, most of whom develop their politics and their opinions based on TV soundbites and what they discuss with their parents, friends, etc I would imagine that the suggestions you make for vetting leadership in USA will either remain as they are or worsen in future.

What are you going to know about a leader that is not beholden to one of the major news outlets?

One might have expected 1) Dubya not to involve the country in a war because he managed to "maintain his political viability" (recall how abused Clinton was for having used that term in a letter he wrote in 1967 or so?) by dodging Vietnam in the Texas National Guard without actually serving. or 2) He might have been expected to invade Iraq because:            a) Saddam tried to murder Daddy, or b) "it'll be good for the family oil bidness."

Now, exactly what would you set as criteria for deciding who would be a good leader? One might even have thought that John Kerry would have been a good leader. The men who served under him seemed to think so regardless of the tactics of the so-called "Swift Boat" propaganda and disinformation put out by the Bushies last time out.

One needs to be able to sort and evaluate all sorts of intangibles, events, and tangibles to do what you suggest. Those pieces of information are almost always distributed by the politicos themselves or "dug up" by some enterprizing journalist who has the job that will allow her or him to publish that information. And not all news outlets will publish/publicize all the information "dug up" by their reporters, etc.

The Murdoch group, the Moon group are unlikely to publish anything remotely harmful to their rightest/statist preferences.

So, please. Propose how one goes about "rais(ing) standards by which we measure the caliber of our leaders." And please also inform us how when the revaluation occurs we go about firing the leader we now see for the cad she or he is/was/might have been/might be.

Would the process as simple as what you seem to be indicating it is.

Nichole

Quote from: Skye on September 26, 2007, 12:35:19 PM
I think my point is,  we, Americans, must either raise our standards by which we measure the calibre of our leaders, or be silent in the idiots we consistently elect into office.

I agree with most of what you say but I have yet to see anyone worth casting my vote for all I have seen is people who are self serving and what cause them the least amout of strife is what they are going to do. I have yet to see an elected official inforce the idea that this country is supposed to be based on which is freedom. if the idea of freedom is strictly inforced there would be no need for special bills to be passed to protect anyones rights because if our freedoms and rights that this country is supposed to be based on were inforced no one could trample anyones rights based on predjudicies to begin with! as it is we are allowed the rights and freedoms that the ruling class sees fit to give us!

Nicole,

QuoteI presume you were not in the column ambushed and unsupported in Somalia, right?

No, I was with a Force Recon Element that was pulled out just before.  My point was it was totally unnecessary and unadvised to pull us out.  There was no reason for it.  We weren't pulled back or reassigned for some other reason.

FYI, I may rant here, and please take no person affront to it, it is simply a reaction to things I have heard and or seen for years.

It sounds to me like you in many ways agree but are frustrated with how to approach it.

Basically it's a lot like the way the wealthy handle money; the secret is not to do it like everyone else.

Think of it like this.   How many wealthy people do you know that pay for expensive things with a credit card?   None I know of and I service ALOT of them.   The wealthy are wealthy because they have money, not credit.  This is the opposite of what everyone else is being told consistently.   With this same logic, if we break the patterns by which we choose/elect our leaders we change the leaders we choose/elect from.

It's not a guarantee mind you but it's possible.   If you were presented with 2 channels on tv.  And they watched to see which you would choose Beastmaster 2 or Beastmaster 3, and in turn you chose neither and turned it off, they would clearly not try to show you either movie again.

No I don't think that it is as simple as that, but it has to begin somewhere.
If this election boiled down to 2 candidates, and no one, I mean not 1 person voted aside from the candidates themselves, neither would be elected.   Yes I realize that is next to impossible but the concept is sound.  Until we as a mass demand better candidates, and stop electing the unqualified, we will continue down the same path we always have.   Choosing between Beastmaster 2 and 3.

You said

QuoteWhat are you going to know about a leader that is not beholden to one of the major news outlets?

This scares me.  Perhaps I misunderstand you but this sounds to me like you believe half of what you hear from these moronic organizations.   Know this.   I never watch the news, I go find it.  If I want to know what's happening with a kidnapping that is making national news, I will hit the dailies posted by the OIC for the investigation.   If I want to know what's going on in Iraq, I read mil reports from field commanders.

The point is, if you trust 1 thing these people have to say, then I can only suggest we cease our conversation.   If people want the truth, they have to go find it.  It's not going to be presented on "Live at 5".   You seem smarter than that, and once again I know that it can be frustrating to find your news elsewhere, who has the time.  So I hope I misunderstood what you meant.

Lastly, and the only complaint about your post I have, is the "dubya" section.   I won't quote as it takes up space and I am already long-winded.   We can paint any picture of anyone in history we want.  History is pop culture and as its been said history may one day show that Michael Jackson may in fact be the only normal one of us.   The point is, you can get upset for any number of reasons why we went to war in Iraq, but the real reasons do not include anything you stated above.   I will clear up a couple misconceptions you and most people have about this right now as it is beyond infuriating to me to hear over and over.

1.  Oil.   If we were after oil, explain to me why we sat back and watched as field after field burned for months on end?
2.  "For Daddy" True, Bush Sr did not accomplish all the goals we wanted.   This had -0- to do with desire and more to do with political ambushing.   How would it have seemed if at the time, our goal being to move Iraq out of Kuwait, if we have in turn invaded Iraq?   Hypocritical that's how.  And that is what was told to him.   He was avoiding political suicide.  Not that it made much difference LOL.  So from his politically motivated decision, W, decides to go back in?   Sorry but even the most retarded of rednecks knows better than to put your head on a block when the axe is being sharpened.
3.  Maintaining Political Viability, Just because a president has no prior military service, sending people to war does not give him this credibility.   As a veteran I laughed my ass off when I saw him in a flight suit.  But then again, I thought.   This is our president.  If he wants to take a ride in an F-18 there is nothing wrong with that.   Just because it makes Wolf Blitzer doesn't mean its a national event.
4.  Weapons of Mass Destruction.    Why is it when you hear this word the first thing you think of is Nuclear?   I can prove to you there were WMD's in Iraq.  In fact I will bet you can prove it yourself.
Stop reading and think a sec back to 1991.     You see it yet?    What was shot at Israel from Iraq.   Scuds'
remember those?   You fire em off, and turn on CNN to see where it landed.   Point is, this is a WMD.   Not quite impact of a Nuc on the 11:00 News, but it fits the bill.   I could be wrong but during the short time I had to spend over there, that wasn't a yellow can of smoke I was avoiding breathing with a gas mask on.   Also, in reference to the media bit from earlier, when it did come out that they had found the WMD's and realized that most had been moved to Syria before the war started, why wasn't this made a massive story?  Why did people still keep getting upset over WMD's and why we went to war?    Because it was Pop-Culture to slant the president at every angle.   That is what was news worthy.   I could be wrong but this is the way it has always been.

Frankly, I hate bush more than the leftist of Liberal commie pinko's.   I don't want my leader to come in under the veil of conservatism (real conservatism not the globalist BS that it has been muddled to) and come to find out he can't understand the concept of a boarder.

There are so many reasons to hate W, why choose from the ones the media spoon feeds to you daily.

A bad leader is a bad leader.   He isn't bad because the media, or talk show hosts, or his adverse party says he is.   He is a bad leader when the decision he makes consistently has a more negative effect than the decision he could have made.
This is not the moment you give him credit for everything much in the same way you blame him for everything.

I am sure you hear a lot of crap blamed on bush, well frankly if that man has done half the things he has been blamed for, he has my vote again and again and again.    But reality dictates that he has not.   It's simply easier to blame the guy in charge.   So we have reduced the Presidency to a figurehead of blamable proportions and the glorious accomplishment of failure.   Thereby making the position not only moot, but loathsome.

See, get me on a rant and I just go.

All in all I think my point is, if we want our leaders to change, we must change.   If we want our leaders to inspire, we must demand that they be a better person than we are.

As for removing them, short of revolution there is a reason its a termed based office   

Course that's just my opinion, I could be quoting Dennis Miller

Quote1.  Oil.   If we were after oil, explain to me why we sat back and watched as field after field burned for months on end?

The fires are not easy to put out. Getting the people and equipment there and slowly putting them out without any deaths can take years.  Kuwait was drilling diagonally under the Iraq border and stealing Iraq's oil. Their revenge was destabilizing the power structure in the area hence jeopardizing the flow of oil from the area.

The details of politics are secretes that rarely are made public. The truth is a lot harder to find than by just digging. But digging is better than the News.

One final question. "Exactly where, how, when, and withy whom do you dig? You write as though your knowledge of Dubya goes much deeper than him and his handlers putting out info. I am simply wondering where you might gather all this arcane information that is not "dug up" for some political purpose by either "boosters" or "detractors."

My point was simply this: we all tend to believe what we are inclined to believe and for reasons we are often unconscious of or prefer to leave hidden from others.

As I pointed out with Dubya: a predictor of his policies might have chosen either of two adversarial guesses about what he might have done vis-a-vis Iraq.

I understand that a lot of information is available that most of us never see because we do not look for it. I.F. Stone made an excellent living and reputation for four or five decades over mining items from the Congressional Record and other "open sources" that were available to all of the major new outlets of his era.

Yet, when the stories were done, he did them, not AP, UPI, CBS, BBC, NBC or Reuters, ABC. Policy and procedural information is, indeed, available as you say.

A character examination of an individual is often a matter, on the other hand, of prejudiced internal leanings, pre-decisions, and information, true or false, put into the public arena by those with one or the other edge of the ax to hone.

Nichole

Quote from: InBetween (Merrick-Scott) on September 12, 2007, 07:14:59 PM
Who do you think would do better for our community? Hilary Clinton or Barrak Obama?



-Merrick-Scott

Neither.
Obama changes his stance all the time.  While I don't think he's bad, I think he's just a puppet being played out for the democratic party.
I'd rather vote for a dead republican in the KKK than Clinton.

I don't see any perfect republican candidates either.

Please don't critique my post using CNN as your source.

Kucinich is the best. Clinton is one of the worst because she is power hungry and doesn't do anything unless it is popular.