“Shining” OPEN THREAD
Seen the original The Shining? See the trailer for the new “Shining.”
Or, watch bunnies do The Exorcist …
This is an OPEN THREAD!
Month: October 2005
The "Up With Torture" 9
After extremely competitive showcases culminating in a showdown thumbs-up, thumbs-down, thumbs-off vote, nine new members joined the United States’ “Up With Torture” (US-UWT) cheerleader squad this week
Read MoreWill 2006 Be 1974 All Over Again?
It feels like 1973-74 all over again:
Twenty years before the GOP’s “Contract With America” wave of 1994, the House absorbed the shock of another freshman class that was just as big and as dominated by one party.
The members of the Class of 1974 were young, relatively new to public office and remarkably certain they could remake Washington in their own image. They viewed Congress as ossified, beholden to powerful interests, unresponsive to the people and ripe for the taking.
The Class of 1974 had 75 Democrats to just 17 Republicans (the “Contract” Class of 1994 would have 73 Republicans and just 13 Democrats). This huge influx of Democrats was known as the “Watergate babies.” The label derived from the scandal that, less than three months earlier, had caused President Richard M. Nixon to resign under threat of impeachment.
So strong was the tide running that fall — especially after Nixon was pardoned by successor President Gerald R. Ford — that Democrats were elected in districts all over the Northeast, the Midwest and the West that had voted Republican for generations.
The two most senior members of the then-minority Republicans were defeated. In Massachusetts, Paul E. Tsongas became the first Democrat elected to the House from his district in the 20th century. The bookish Andrew Maguire in New Jersey and the street-savvy organizer Toby Moffett in Connecticut captured suburban Republican districts.
In the West, Timothy E. Wirth won the Colorado district based in Boulder, Les AuCoin became the first Democrat from Oregon’s northwest corner since the 1800s and California elected a crop of young legislators that included George Miller, Henry A. Waxman and Norman Y. Mineta.
The new victors were a Kiddie Corps, half of them under 40. Tom Downey of New York, just 25, was the youngest member of Congress since the early 1800s. “We were young, we looked weird. I can’t even believe we got elected,” Moffett would say two decades later.
:::flip:::
Read More“A bitter Mideast split “
by Patrick Lang
The tragic outcome for Iraq and the region could be that both Arabs and Iranians might enhance their assistance to their respective sectarian allies in Iraq in what is shaping up as a fight by proxy.
These are the very developments that the Bush administration and its allies had wanted to avoid. But they are now confronted with them as a fait accompli. The occupying forces can no longer really trust either the Iraqi Sunni or Shiites. The only friends on whom they can count are the Kurds. No wonder President Jalal Talabani, the most prominent Kurd in the present Iraqi leadership, is desperately trying to persuade the United States and Britain against any early withdrawal of their troops.
“Unless Bush and Blair succeed in opening direct negotiations with the Iraqi resistance and enlist the support of Iraq’s neighbors, especially Iran and Syria, as well as the Arab League, the Iraq conflict is set to grow into a bigger and longer-term regional crisis. ” (iht.com)
(Amin Saikal, a professor of political science, directs the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.)
| Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including PBS’s Newshour, and most recently on MSNBC’s Hardball and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His CV and blog are linked below the fold. |
Our basic mistake in Iraq was to believe that Iraq was eagerly awaiting a social revolution that would sweep away the old and welcome the new in a kind of joyful French Revolution festival of retribution and enabling. The neocon Jacobins, true to their names, believed this most of all and somehow believed that the 12er Shia would be the instrument for the realization of this fantasy. These Shia were the same people who were angry at Saddam for not allowing them to beat themselves with chains and machetes on Ashura.
So, instead of re-starting the clock of history in Iraq …
Continued BELOW:
I Am Not My Leaders
I am not my leaders. I am not my elected officials. I am not my parents. I am not my neighbour. I am my own person.
There’s been much debate on the site recently about the concept of personal responsibility for others thoughts, actions and policies. That conversation has been based on the deep despair so many feel about their leaders and their countries decisions related to the Iraq war. Some have asked for solutions and that has been a difficult request to respond to. However, as most of the best solutions are, the answer is quite simple. You, as an individual, can either be co-dependent or interdependent.
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