I just want to point out that over on Daily Kos, DHinMI has been running an interesting series of posts drawing connections between three things I frequently write about with derision: Blackwater, Amway, and Bushies. It's worth a look.
"Bush Authoritarianism: Blackwater+Amway=GOP"
Also linked from the latest entry, there is a great piece about Amway magnate Dick DeVos, whom I mentioned in my Blackwater post.
Interesting read, but from a decided leftist slant. I certainly don't approve of many things that have come from the Bush years, but I also don't favor BIG govt. like the left-wingers do.
ReplyDeleteAbout Blackwater..mercenaries have been used as far back as the Viet Nam war by the US. I don't think they were organized like the Blackwater operatives are, but they still were hired to do covert stuff, under the radar of any oversight or legal entanglements.
Guess you've read where Rice is calling for a reining in of the Blackwater security forces in Iraq. Also, interesting that her under-secretary for security resigned the day after a report was released regarding BW's use in Iraq. He had served 36 yrs. in govt. and just up and called it quits after that report...hmmmm....
Interesting read, but from a decided leftist slant.
ReplyDeleteWhy use the word "but"? Why not say "Interesting read, AND from a decided leftist slant"? :)
I certainly don't approve of many things that have come from the Bush years, but I also don't favor BIG govt. like the left-wingers do.
In my opinion, this is a myth. Government consistently grows far bigger under Republican administrations than under Democratic ones.
About Blackwater..mercenaries have been used as far back as the Viet Nam war by the US. I don't think they were organized like the Blackwater operatives are, but they still were hired to do covert stuff, under the radar of any oversight or legal entanglements.
Obviously mercenaries have been used throughout military history, certainly long before the Vietnam war. That doesn't make it a good idea, especially when it is done under the table in an ostensible democracy. As Machiavelli said,
"Mercenary and auxiliary forces are useless and dangerous; and any ruler who keeps his state dependent upon mercenaries will never have real peace or security. ... Experience shows that only princes and republics with troops of their own have accomplished great things, while mercenary forces have brought nothing but harm."
It's not just the fact that they are mercenaries, it's also the fact that they are apparently unaccountable to our laws that makes Blackwater so dangerous to our country's interests.
I suppose I use the word "but" as a shortened form of "but for"..meaning it's an interesting article, except it is written by a left-winger with a biased point of view!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where you think smaller govt. comes from the left wing...they are certainly the ones wanting to raise our taxes to pay for MORE govt. entitlement programs, which in turn requires MORE govt. oversight.
It's true that the right wing supports and funds a decidedly larger military. In that sense, than right wing spending is huge, compared to history of military spending by the left.
The left makes up for it with their domestic program spending, etc.
I think we both agree that BW needs to be reined in and possibly just "fired" from their jobs with the govt.
I don't understand why they are so much better positioned to guard our diplomats over there, anyway?? Are our soldiers not enough? Are they more poorly trained? Is it because they can operate outside the constraints of the usual rules of engagement?
I honestly don't know. However, they seem to want them there.
I'd hate to think that our volunteer army couldn't manage their goals without a company like BW.
Sharon,
ReplyDeleteBy any objective measure, Republican administrations consistently spend massively more on overall combined government functions than Democrats do, and this has been the case for at least thirty years. Consider the first table on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
Notice that going clear back to the second Nixon administration, the column indicating "Increase in debt/GDP" next to every Republican -- Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush -- is positive (federal debt increases in proportion to our nation's wealth) while under every Democrat -- both Clinton and Carter -- the increase was negative.
Republicans being the party of fiscal responsibility is a myth. It hasn't been true for decades, at least. Republicans spend like drunken sailors. But not only do they do that, but they also cut taxes at the same time. While this seems like a good idea when you are the short term recipient, in the long term it has the same effect as what happens to your personal finances when you stop paying credit card bills. It may feel good to rack up "free" stuff on your card and not pay for it, but every year that it sits there you accumulate more and more interest.
The idea that Republicans let you keep "your" money is a total illusion. They are responsible for the biggest increases in spending, AND they convince people that they don't have to pay for it until later.
Furthermore, the kinds of spending that Democrats are inclined to increase and Republicans are inclined to cut are infrastructure programs that form the backbone of our nation's well-being. The horrible tragedy of Hurricane Katrina had every bit as much to do with horribly bad government mismanagement as it had to do with bad weather. The bridge that recently collapsed in Minnesota had revealed major insufficiencies from years of not spending on national infrastructure items such as bridge repair. Lack of spending at homes kills people, as surely as an invading army does.
But seriously, when you look at the numbers, you should see that your claim that the left "makes up for" the right's military spending with their domestic programs" is just factually incorrect. The right spends far more than the left. Consistently, every single time.
Sorry, one other thing I meant to add...
ReplyDeleteI suppose I use the word "but" as a shortened form of "but for"..meaning it's an interesting article, except it is written by a left-winger with a biased point of view!
Why is the post worse for being written by a left-winger with a biased point of view? My posts are the same way. Does this make my posts bad, in your opinion?
I mean, if you found something factually untrue about the post, or disagreed with the conclusion, that would be one thing. But you're just saying it's bad because a liberal wrote it?
I don't know if there is anything factually untrue in the article as I'd have to do an indepth research and still wouldn't know the truth. I just know that there is a huge division in this country between the left and right. Whenever one writes/comments on the other, there is going to be a "spin" involved. Ergo, I don't naturally trust any of these website articles for being an unbiased viewpoint on any subject.
ReplyDeleteI never said it was "bad", just "interesting".
One thing I *do* know..that when politics is the issue, the truth is very hard to find.
I'm a natural-born skeptic. I don't trust either side's efforts to sway the public.
Here is what ultra-conservative, far right-wing Buchanan says about the current Presidential campaign, from the Republican standpoint..it offers his views of what "conservative politics" has gone through over the past decades.
ReplyDeleteI lived through nearly all of what he has written about...and it is a fairly accurate description of the various men who were Republican presidents.
He is bemoaning the loss of the "true conservative" in politics, as he sees it.
I don't know why politicians can't understand that politics goes through an "evolution" of change, as is necessary to adapt to our times.
Wonder what Jefferson would have thought of these days??
Thomas J. I'm referring to!!
It looks like there might have been a link that you meant to include in that last post, but forgot to. I can't see what you're referring to. However, I can guess what Pat Buchanan would say, because I've heard him and many others say it before.
ReplyDeleteThey think that George W. Bush is not a "true conservative," and they want to blame his obvious incompetence, his misguided foreign policy, and his wasteful big government spending on some kind of secret liberalism. They pine for the days of reasonable conservatives like Ronald Reagan, and think he would not recognize his own party today.
To put it bluntly, I think people who say such things are whitewashing their party's history. Reagan, the great hero of today's conservatives, was very much the intellectual heir to George Bush. Reagan is the one who decided to ignore the long-term consequences of federal deficits and plunge us into greatly accelerating levels of spending debt. Reagan wholeheartedly embraced the trend of government secrecy, lack of accountability, and concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the executive branch, which culminated in the Iran-Contra scandals.
My take on conservatism is that "fiscal responsibility" is a talking point and nothing more. Never has been a primary goal, certainly not since Reagan. Conservatism is about conserving social order: People who are born rich have a right to leverage their money as much as possible, and people who are not born rich deserve to stay there. Cronyism like Blackwater and con games like Amway are part and parcel of the deal.
Interesting information, like Sharon said. I'm with you on the Amway Wallet-Suckers and somewhat with President Geroge W Bush (aka President Giant Douche as he's referred by one of fellow NFL Scout.com posters).
ReplyDeleteI'm still undecided about Blackwater agents as I'm waiting for all the evidence to come out before making a decision. But it doesn't look good when a company family member is married to a Amway stooge noted for fleecing millions out of their hard-earned money.
BTW: I wanted to say Thanks Kazim for being a big inspiration to set up my own Blog. I thanked you over there on my first Blog.
Thanks for the acknowledgment, Hank. I would post a comment over on your blog, but you don't seem to have enabled comments yet.
ReplyDeleteOK, I went back into my dashboard. I didn't see any specific setting to enable comments but I did set it so anyone can comment. Hope that works.
ReplyDeleteAny advice on how to do this would be welcome.