Kerry memorialized at Ho Chi Minh City museum

[Fat_Teddy]

Nahhhh, he's wasn't aiding and abetting.

[Skeezix]

The story on the link describes a photo from 1993 showing Kerry -as part of a delegation of US Vietnam War Veterans- meeting Vietnamese officials. The war was long over, and the purpose of the meeting was one of healing. Hardly aiding and abetting! Nice try at mudslinging ...but you right-wingers are getting desperate as Bush squanders Republican's chance to retain the oval office.

[johndavidjr]

So happy to note the story on same sight by the highly credible political analyst Jerry Falwell. I really must try and ease out of this degenerating flame war...allow me to beg forgiveness for over-participation and blame it on lousy weather this weekend....I know Gobberment's not the answer, but http://www.crh.noaa.gov/forecasts/NJZ006.php?warncounty=NJC017&city=Jersey+City

Edited June 6, 2004 by johndavidjr

[Fat_Teddy]

The story on the link describes a photo from 1993 showing Kerry -as part of a delegation of US Vietnam War Veterans- meeting Vietnamese officials. The war was long over, and the purpose of the meeting was one of healing. Hardly aiding and abetting! Nice try at mudslinging ...but you right-wingers are getting desperate as Bush squanders Republican's chance to retain the oval office.

 

The PICTURE was from 1993, but what was the exhibit again? Oh yeah, American Vietnam War Protestors being thanked for their support.

[Skeezix]

So what? They can thank all the protestors they want. I protested the Vietnam war too. I admire Kerry for protesting it. Popular consensus is that we were wrong to carry on the Vietnam war as long as we did. President Johnson knew he was wrong to continue it, but couldn't figure out a way out. I can't make the leap with you that Kerry "aided and abetted." He served heroically in combat in Vietnam. When he came back, he worked within the system (by testifying before a Congressional committee) to help America come to terms with Vietnam.

[Stonehead]

President Bush gets out of his helicopter in front of the White House carrying a baby pig under each arm.

 

The Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."

 

Bush replies: "These are not pigs, these are Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one for Vice-President Cheney, and I got one for Defence Secretary Rumsfeld."

 

The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Nice trade, sir."

[JoshK]

[Fat_Teddy]

So what? They can thank all the protestors they want. I protested the Vietnam war too. I admire Kerry for protesting it. Popular consensus is that we were wrong to carry on the Vietnam war as long as we did. President Johnson knew he was wrong to continue it, but couldn't figure out a way out. I can't make the leap with you that Kerry "aided and abetted." He served heroically in combat in Vietnam. When he came back, he worked within the system (by testifying before a Congressional committee) to help America come to terms with Vietnam.

 

Negotiating with the commies in Paris, 1971. Twice.

[Lars]

kerry is a pathetic POS

[Skeezix]

Negotiating with the commies in Paris, 1971. Twice.

 

I don't know what you're referring to.

[slothrop]

I don't know what you're talking about either... Didn't Kissinger "negotiate with the commies in Paris"? Or is that OK because he had no intentions of actually coming to a peace agreement?

[scott_harpell]

The Right's greatest strength is $$$

 

The Left's is $$

[scott_harpell]

Hmm, my boner doesn't agree.

 

Methinks your boner has been listening to too much Rancid. That is all.

[Fat_Teddy]

I don't know what you're talking about either... Didn't Kissinger "negotiate with the commies in Paris"? Or is that OK because he had no intentions of actually coming to a peace agreement?

 

Of course you don't know what I'm talking about. You avoid anything that shows Kerry's true colors. Kerry traveled to Paris to negotiate with the commies twice. That's illegal.

 

It was Kissinger's job.

[slothrop]

Hey Theodore! Try not to assume you know me and what I'm thinking, ok?

 

For our edification, please post a link to documentation of Kerry's travels to Paris, as well as the section of the US Code that details how whatever it is he did is illegal.

[Fat_Teddy]

Hey Theodore! Try not to assume you know me and what I'm thinking, ok?

 

For our edification, please post a link to documentation of Kerry's travels to Paris, as well as the section of the US Code that details how whatever it is he did is illegal.

 

I don't have to assume. You lay it out for the world to see.

 

Testimony before Congress

 

USC

[Skeezix]

FT, your links assert that Kerry talked to the Vietnamese in Paris. I'm glad he did. I hope his actions helped shorten or end the war. I don't, however, see any clear proof in your links that Kerry had

intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States

I think Kerry's heroic behavior in combat in Vietnam gave him a right to criticize the war. You still haven't demonstrated any substance to your charge of "aiding and abetting."

[johndavidjr]

I don't know that getting wounded in Vietnam makes him a hero-- a term I'd rather reserve for mythology, Jungian psychology, & climbing hyperbole. I dimly recall that by some high-falutin' definitions, you've at least got to be dead (like RR) to be a hero. But its only a stupid quibble.

 

On the other hand, what was wrong at the time with doing what was possible to help end the war. What would have been gained had we "won?" and what was gained, then or now, by prolonging the conflict? Implicitly I'm saying what isn't terribly controversial; that Vietnam was for naught. I'm not clear about the underlying assumptions of those who see a problem here.

Edited June 8, 2004 by johndavidjr

[Stonehead]

What I've noticed is that the conservatives of this site tend to frame the issues and thereby maintain control. Some of them are masters of propanganda. What's required is to reframe the issue.

 

It's like that question: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Damned if you say either "no" or "yes". Reframe the issue so that you can answer that you have never beat your wife.

 

Also, I believe some of them know that repetition tends to work on your memory so that what is clearly false begins to perceived as true.

[cracked]

Be afraid.....be VERY afraid.....

 

[EWolfe]

I think Spungy should get together with Thad and turn this into a boner thread!

[Dru]

 

Also, I believe some of them know that repetition tends to work on your memory so that what is clearly false begins to perceived as true.

 

Do you mean like when everyone posted DAN LARSON SUCKS for 5 pages on Muir on Saturday, or like the Noddder thread?

 

The Noddder? Oh my god!

[Stonehead]

Yes! ...and they also want your children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, too.

 

--excerpts of article following

 

It seems there's no escaping America's culture wars for the Supreme Court: On Tuesday, Oct. 14, the Court announced that it would hear Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a case on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. Newdow arose out of a California parent's attempt to get the phrase "under God" stripped from the Pledge, on the grounds that it represents an establishment of religion.

 

The Newdow case is a Republican campaign strategist's dream. It gives G.O.P. candidates a grand old opportunity to position themselves as defenders of tradition against militant atheists and liberal judges. George Bush the elder used the Pledge to similar effect in his 1988 campaign against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who had vetoed a bill requiring public school teachers to lead their classes in the Pledge.

 

It's probably too much to ask politicians to reflect a little before they lunge for a political hot-button issue. But any conservatives so inclined should think about what they're defending. What's so conservative about the Pledge?

 

Very little, as it turns out. From its inception, in 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering pulpit-pounding sermons on such topics as "Jesus the Socialist." Bellamy was devoted to the ideas of his more-famous cousin Edward Bellamy, author of the 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward. Looking Backward describes the future United States as a regimented worker's paradise where everyone has equal incomes, and men are drafted into the country's "industrial army" at the age of 21, serving in the jobs assigned them by the state. Bellamy's novel was extremely popular, selling more copies than other any 19th century American novel except Uncle Tom's Cabin. Bellamy's book inspired a movement of "Nationalist Clubs," whose members campaigned for a government takeover of the economy. A few years before he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, Francis Bellamy became a founding member of Boston's first Nationalist Club.

 

--snip--

 

Hands on their hearts, more than 100 Republican members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol to recite the pledge shortly after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Newdow in June 2002. It was an effective photo-op, allowing the G.O.P. to cast itself as the defender of tradition. But not every tradition deserves defending. Though no one can be legally compelled to salute the flag, encouraging the ritual smacks of promoting a quasi-religious genuflection to the state. That's not surprising, given that the Pledge was designed by an avowed socialist to encourage greater regimentation of society.

 

Regardless of the legal merits of Newdow's case -- which rests on a rather ambitious interpretation of the First Amendment's Establishment clause -- it's ironic to see conservatives rally to such a questionable custom. Why do so many conservatives who, by and large, exalt the individual and the family above the state, endorse this ceremony of subordination to the government? Why do Christian conservatives say it's important for schoolchildren to bow before a symbol of secular power? Indeed, why should conservatives support the Pledge at all, with or without "under God"?

 

-- Source: Cato Institute (http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/dailys/11-04-03.html)

 

Bastards!

[willstrickland]

Saw Dan Larson in the "who's online" last week. Started to PM him and ask what all he's climbed in the last couple of years and what (if anything) besides Ranier. Then I though, "nah, who cares, HE SUCKS".

[sk]

I thought the pledge was writen as an ad to sell flags , by alibratarian or some shit

 

 

you guys are so boring it hurts