🏷️ politics

I know that there has been some talk about political and other kinds of "radio" shows that could be a part of our little online community. The other day while smoking a joint a light bulb went off - @joshua and I can have our own debate program! You all must admit pitting brother versus brother in a political debate could turn out to be a very entertaining adventure. Joshy can be the right winger, and I can play the devil's advocate moderate when it comes to most issues.

I was thinking it could be a weekly program that we record from our apartment, where we address global, national and local issues that we deem important enough to talk about. We could invite guests from any and all parts of the political spectrum to come over and join the debate. We could also have an e-mail address and IM name for the show so anyone can chime in with their comments and questions. We would read some of the e-mails and answer them as a segment of the show. I was also thinking we could make use of some of @drchlorine's "commercials" and play them during breaks as well. Maybe we could have some call-ins, depending on the timing, using Skype or something similar.

Obviously nobody here is a professional pundit or politico. Nobody is going to know everything about everything. I think that we could put together a very fun and informative show nevertheless. Josh's abrasiveness, combined with my unique and hilarious sense of humor injected into politics - and with the help of in-house guests and e-mail reaction could turn out to be something that people can enjoy, especially if they are sick of the same old same old.

So who wants to be a guest on Larson vs. Larson? If I could put up audio in various formats would anybody want to check it out?

Jason

I wanted to continue this discussion, but instead of having the comments fade into obscurity as I write more entries I decided to create a new journal entry to continue the discussion. I think this stuff is worthy of discussion, so let's do this! I'll start with the last comment:

@ajay writes:

[size=s](Jason), I do come from a long line of soldiers, so being a soldier is not an unknown for me. I was objecting to the standard "liberal media" and other BS. The media is most definitely NOT liberal. Just because an occasional anti-war story creeps through it does not make them "liberal". If you really care to understand what this "war" is about (and it is/was NOT about defending America, just to make it clear. It was NOT about installing democracy there either; if democracy was that important, why are the 3 closest US allies (KSA, Kuwait and Pakistan) non-democratic? In Kuwait and KSA women have minimal rights. But I digress), then you should be open to other views, and make your own mind up instead of blindly believing whatever National Review (there's a "liberal media" rag for you :) ) tells you. How come you never criticise the war? I think it was Roosevelt who said, "dissent is patriotic".

Coming to the issue of the solidiers being harassed, of course it is wrong. I will take issue with anybody who thinks harassing a uniformed service member is OK. It is not. By linking (in your mind) the harassment and the "liberal media" or "liberal professors", you are just as bad as the jackasses who harass the soldiers.[/size]

Well first of all I am relieved to hear that you are against soldier harassment. In this manner you agree with the basic premise of the article. The point of the article wasn't to say "lib media this, lib media that" - it was to highlight the treatment some of these guys and gals are getting on campus. What can I say, other than some people enjoy being misanthropes?

Whether the media is "liberal" or not depends on who you are talking to. A lot of liberals object to it being called the liberal media because it is not pushing the opinions of the far left wing. The mainstream media does not read like The Nation, so how could it be liberal? I understand this point of view, and put that way I definitely agree. Many people in conservative circles tend to lump everyone left of center into the "liberal" category. They don't realize how fractured the left really is. No, I wouldn't say that the mainstream media is far left wing but I would say that it is without a doubt tilted to the left more often than not. This manifests itself in a few ways, such as the headlines that are printed, how the articles frame a subject, what information is omitted, the language that is used, and misinformation. This stuff is self evident - you do not need to read conservative rags to see the situation for what it is.

Cherry picking the odd right-leaning quote from a mainstream media outlet is a very weak strategy - if I had to make a post every time the mainstream media shapes a story in favor of the left I likely would not post about much of anything other than the media. So if you say to me that the media isn't liberal because it doesn't carry the torch of the left wing I would agree, but don't make the mistake so many other people do in ignoring or denying very basic truths about how the press shapes their "product". The exploding success of Fox and other right wing media outlets is only a result of having a product that is unique - they differentiate themselves by airing scoops that nobody else on TV or radio will cover, and providing different angles than other news media. It is SOSDD from everybody else.

Someone please tell me who else besides the right-leaning media will cover soldier harrassment on campus? The only time soldiers are any good to the left is when they are in a casket or when they beat up a poor, helpless insurgent. Nobody on the left wants to shed positive light on our soldiers or anything they do. These people have titanium plated, diamond encrusted testicles and the left absolutely refuses to tell their stories. Why is this? Political reasons? Without a doubt. Saying that I should not believe NR because it's a conservative rag is silly - someone on the left or the mainstream media should be covering this stuff as well if they want to shed the labels they have been given and retain credibility.

Of course, when someone is a right-leaning person, they can't possibly think for themselves! Nobody who can actually form coherent, logical thoughts could POSSIBLY come to a different conclusion than what the left offers! If they do, no it is not because of careful consideration or life experience, it is because of brainwashing and weak minds! There is not a conservative alive who thinks for themselves! Personally attack them at all costs! They're drinking the Kool-Aid of course! What a shallow, silly thing to say - especially when there isn't an effective counter argument to the article I posted about soldier harrassment on campus. If people here really want to know what I read on a regular basis, I will offer it up honestly:

National Review
The Nation
The New Republic (although you have to pay to read their full articles, wtf)
Town Hall
Huffington Post on Yahoo
Talking Points Memo (I learned of this one passively through you, @ajay)
Washington Monthly
Fox News
New York Times

I check out a variety of media sources. The reason for this is because you can learn different angles dealing with the same story, and you can read about different subjects each side champions. Although I lean to the right I'm interested in all points of view. I've said I don't know how many times on this very journal that I'm open minded and willing to listen. I've asked the lefties on this site for their opinions. I'm the only political person on (e:strip) who is willing and humble enough to challenge what they think. This whole kool-aid, think for yourself nonsense will never stick. Partisanship is not useful - it is groupthink. Ultimately what I want isn't to take sides, but to learn the truth. If I'm wrong about something I will admit it. In this way I am light years beyond most people.

About the Iraq war - @ajay is correct, I do not criticize the war. I do not say much about the war at all. I have family fighting in it so I keep quiet in general. In my journal I have said that I think it was a mistake to go into Iraq, and that our focus should have been squarely on Afghanistan - it seems to me that we left one mission half-finished before we started another one. I do not make a connection between 9/11 and Iraq - a more accurate connection would be 9/11, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. I'm not like other people and I will not speculate on the reasons for the war and pass it off as fact. The most interesting theory I have heard is that there are numerous ancient artifacts in Iraq that Saddam had control of which could possibly give us much more information as to the origins of humanity. It is allegedly very shocking information - too dangerous to be let out into the public. Now obviously it sounds far-fetched, and it is - but it is much more interesting than the blood for oil argument - yep that petrol we're stealing from Iraq should be arriving here any day now. Is this enough criticism, or is there something specific that someone wants to ask me about? Ask away and I'll give you my honest opinion. I don't always toe the line like everybody else.

Jason

Campus Rads vs. Our Vets
[size=s]The antiwar unwelcome on campus.[/size]
[size=s]By Wynton C. Hall & Peter Schweizer (from National Review)[/size]

As college students hit campuses across the nation this week, a new generation of young veterans will step off the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and onto the ideological battlefield of our university campuses. For those on the frontline in the war on terror, the antiwar hostility of liberal professors and campus activists will assuredly prove unsettling.

Just ask Marine sergeant Marco Martinez, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a full-time psychology major at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif.

"A woman on campus had apparently learned I might be a Marine. When I told her I was, she said, 'You're a disgusting human being, and I hope you rot in hell!' "

Indeed, Martinez, who will be the first male in his family to receive a college diploma, says he is receiving more of an education than he bargained for: "There are a lot of people who don't appreciate military service in college," Martinez said. "If someone asks me about it, and I think that they're not too liberal, I might tell them I was in Iraq. But I don't tell them the full extent of it or anything about the Navy Cross."

The Navy Cross - as in second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Martinez, formerly of 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, is a bona-fide American hero and the first Hispanic American since Vietnam to receive the Navy Cross. During the Battle of At Tarmiya, one of Sergeant Martinez's fellow marines had been hit in the legs and left for dead by five terrorists holed up in an adobe garden shed. That's when Martinez used his body to shield the dying marine from the terrorist before mounting a 20-meter frontal charge at the bunker with nothing but a depleted rifle and a grenade. With enemy bullets pinging off his gear, Martinez unpinned the grenade, slammed his body into the adobe building, and lobbed the device into the window of the structure, killing all the terrorists inside.

But as liberal professors and antiwar activists continue to wage a nationwide campaign to rid university campuses of military recruiters - in some cases going so far as to throw water bottles and scream epithets at them - it is easy to see why Sergeant Martinez would remain tight-lipped about being one of the nation's most decorated heroes.

Indeed, as one campus newspaper reported, the rift between young veteran college students and their civilian classmates has left those who have served feeling isolated from campus life, "shunned" because of their service.

Just ask Armand McCormick, 23, a student at the University of Northern Iowa.

While walking to class one day, McCormick stopped to listen to a speaker during an antiwar student rally. When he challenged the protestor's arguments, the "peace" activist sneered, "The Iraqis don't want us there. If you think the war is okay, then why don't you go and serve!"

There was an obvious problem with the protestor's retort: He had no clue who he was talking to - -Silver Star recipient Marine corporal Armand McCormick.

"I've had a few conversations about [the War on Terror] in the liberal classrooms I go to everyday," said McCormick. "A lot of the time I just look at them and tell them that they don't have any clue what they're talking about, because all they do is listen to liberal news. I always tell them, 'If you don't experience something, how in the hell can you say what will happen?' "

As Corporal McCormick rightly points out, his classmates' reliance upon the elite mainstream media all but ensures that they are unfamiliar with the jaw-dropping acts of heroism he performed on March 25, 2003, in Ad Diwuniyah, Iraq. Far removed from the breezy comforts of a college campus, it was there, inside an enemy trench, that McCormick, along with his two fellow Marines, captain Brian Chontosh and corporal Robert "Robbie" Kerman, was swarmed by what officials estimate was a company-sized element of between 150 to 200 Iraqi fighters. When the smoke cleared, the three marines had not only survived, they had eliminated scores of enemy fighters and regained key territory. It's the sort of incident the campus Left should think about the next time it proclaims how "courageous" it is in protesting the war.

The Left has adopted the mantra that it opposes the war but supports our soldiers. Those veterans visiting campuses tell a different story; the early fault lines forming on our nation's campuses do not portend hopeful signs.

For those who profess to embrace "diversity" and champion allowing "marginalized voices" to be heard, perhaps liberal professors, administrators, and students might learn something were they open-minded enough to listen to the heroes in their midst. Then, and only then, will they correct the tragic mistakes of the Vietnam era that valued politics more than patriots.

Since no matter who wins an election there will always be someone whining, crying and bitching about foul play, I have developed the perfect method of deciding who will become our next Mayor.

You know how dogs drag their ass on the carpet every now and then? They can't scratch their ass like we can, but I think their method is much more humorous. Since I have basically no faith that local government will ever engage in serious reform, they will metaphorically scratch their ass while we continue to suffer.

We will lay out a giant "track" of carpet with lanes, and every candidate will wear a number on their back. The candidates sponsors can pay for advertising space on their race jerseys. The candidates will drag their ass like a dog from point A to point B. Whoever crosses the finish line first will become the next Mayor of Buffalo!

Jason

I read today that on the 700 Club television program, Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. I'm shocked and disgusted. How can a man call himself a Christian, and go on his Christian television show and advocate the killing of another human being? Furthermore, how can he reconcile that statement with his anti-abortion stance? It's shit like this from the wacko religious right that gives all Christians a black eye, and provides the wacko left with the ammunition they desire to demonize and hate all religious people. Does anyone care to wager that this will show up in our alternative shitrags this week?

Now I'm not saying that Hugo Chavez is a good person or a good leader. He took land away from people and gave it to other people. He has tried to take over the Venezuelan oil industry. For someone who talked about "social revolution", the oil wealth that is generated is not shared among the populace. The country has gone on general strike numerous times. Venezuela is a dangerous, unstable place. As he was a former military man, I have serious doubts that he will ever accept stepping down from power, no matter what the election results say. Communism is a failure of a social and economic experiment. I can't really think of anything good to say about Hugo Chavez, other than the fact that he was indeed elected.

None of this means that we have a reason to assassinate him. Pat Robertson is a fake, a phony.......no Christian in the world should use his Christian television program to promote killing. I read the Holy Bible often - therein are many nuggets of wisdom that I try to keep in mind, the most important to me right now being that "A cheerful heart is good medicine." I'm not a "Super Christian" or a holy roller, but I do try to live by certain guidelines. Out of Pat Robertson's mouth come words of violence and hatred. I want you all to know that in no way does he represent all people of faith. Of course you all are aware of the fact that he is a lunatic, much like Mr. Chavez. By the way Mr. Robertson, are you aware that the assassination of a leader of another nation is against international law?

Jason

I agree completely, the atomic bomb is a blight on the human race. I also think that building new types of atom bombs is a mistake. To me killing is killing, regardless of the method. What is preferable, dropping a nuke or using infantry to cut, shoot, and maim? Again I have to say that nobody is justifying nuclear war - that is not the argument anybody is trying to make. You see, yet you do not perceive. It is a mistake to take our own filters and apply them to what someone else writes without trying to process exactly what it is that is being said. Furthermore it stifles honest debate on the subject because it becomes a knee-jerk, reactionary, insult-garbled tit-for-tat. Talking about what happened when and after the bombs were dropped, as well as discussing what may have happened had they not been dropped, are things that don't deserve the kind of venom-spitting that has gone on. None of it is equal to justifying a nuclear holocaust, yet that is the treatment it is getting, and people are getting their panties all up in a bunch and assuming a whole lot of things about people. This is the last time I'll say it - Nobody here thinks Nukes are good! Now are we capable of having a mature discussion about this, the good, the bad, and the ugly? If not, I'll be happy to move on to other topics that interest me.

However we may feel about it, there are nations (as well as groups of individuals who are not under a flag) who would be happy to see multiple nukes dropped on our cities, rendering irrelevant our own feelings on the subject. They have the will to pull the trigger, while we do not. It should be the effort of the entire world to eradicate nuclear weapons from our planet, lest we see London or Berlin or Rome or New York or L.A. become uninhabitable wastelands. You don't do it by offering money and oil, and you do not let rogue nations shake down the free world. It has to be a united front against nuclear weapons, and it has to have teeth. I would sleep better at night knowing that no place on the earth has to worry about it happening to them.

Jason

Cute bartenders make me go and order drinks, so at the very least I can talk to them. I feel so fucking sick. I can hear Rhonda's voice echoing in my head...."That's right Jay! Feel that shit! You deserve it for drinking!" Oy vey..good thing I don't talk to her anymore. I just drank up all of my brother's soda and immediately puked it up! Haha!

@paul I think you went over the top and read things into Josh's posts that simply weren't there - i.e. making excuses for the mass killing of civilians. I don't think anyone believes that killing civilians is O.K. - what Josh said though is technically correct. The bombs ended the war. Japan had 5,000 planes and 3,000,000 soldiers who would rather have died "honorably" than accept defeat. It would have been a knock down, drag out fight with many more casualties. That is not equal to saying that using nukes is A-Okay - clearly in hindsight we all know that using nukes is awful - but rather it is a line of reasoning that says if those nukes had not been dropped we would have seen many more deaths. We very well may have killed multiples of that number, and they may likely have done the same. There is a distinction (very hard to articulate, and very hard to understand) between excusing the use of nukes and offering a plausible alternative account of history. I really feel like you went too far in attacking Josh without trying to figure out the point he was trying to make - and I blame Josh for using language that is basically a written invitation for that kind of reaction (I was always better at articulating this shit).

There was one word in your post that stood out for me though, and I want to elaborate on it a bit. Some people don't have the stomach to embrace what I'm about to say, because it sounds preachy and perhaps too philosophical, but I believe so firmly that it is relevant to this and countless other topics. Compassion is a word that is often spoken, but rarely practiced or exercised in reality. It is so difficult for us as humans to be truly compassionate because it requires us to remove every barrier between ourselves and others which are literally pounded into our brains since birth. Instead we practice what I call "conditional compassion" - people believe in being compassionate sometimes, and not compassionate other times - with the barriers being race, gender, religion, sexuality, political affiation, you fill in the blank. I know many people who feel compassion for gays, but yet feel no compassion for the unborn, or for muslims, or for christians or jews, so on and so forth. It's not necessary to go through all the permutations, you get the idea. It is a lack of compassion that enables war, poverty, and oppression. It is a lack of compassion that allows people to disrespect the homeless, or to treat them like they are less than human. As much as I lament the lack of compassion I believe whole heartedly that we are capable of complete and true compassion - the kind that will get us over the hump and allow us to eradicate the war, the poverty, the oppression, and other such things. I can't emphasize it enough - we are capable of being 100% compassionate, but it will take some work on everyone's part! I have come to the conclusion that more than anything else I want to strive throughout my lifetime to become a completely compassionate person. My soul won't rest without that happening. Compassion, love, and belief in the unity of the human race will save us and usher in a new age of peace and prosperity.

Jason