If your question, where do the questions come from, is asked about my questions about people who were poor and not poor in 1970, it comes from global warming.
How will people measure better in the future? Will they say things are better becuae not only can the top 20% of Americans can afford a 40 foot long camper but the top 80% can afford a 40 foot long camper?
Both major parties are discussing who will have more at a time in human history when every one, except the poor should have to get by with less, in some cases much much less.
To tell people that they have to learn to live with less is not a way that people get elected to lead. Such people can only lead with lead and that is not the American way now is it?
Does ANYONE who was not poor in 1970 deserve to be better off than they were in 1970? Does SOMEONE who was not poor in 1970 deserve to be worse off than they were in 1970?
Many years of speculation led me to the idea a long time ago that at the top levels of the US government there are no Democrats or Republicans there are just blood sucking imperialists. What some of the commentators have said just reinforces that picture. It was not just a few Hawkish neocons that tried start a war with Iran. As has been accurately pointed out the things that were done could not be done without all of the top people in the military knowing about it. If the top people of the State Department did not know that is because the military people did not think they deserved to be told because as far as the top military people are concerned the State Dept. counts for nothing because the Secretary of State controls fewer military assets than the Pope.
So if there was an attempt to goad Iran in to a war with the US it was a plan carried out not by a few Americans but by many.
If there was not an attempt by the US government leaders to goad Iran in to a war it does not mean that those leaders are innocent. It just means that becuase of events going on elsewhere they did not think that the timing was optimal
for such a war.
If the US is fighting a proxy war in Syria against Iran I would not think that it is a critical battle. the US has lost Iraq, it seems. To win Syria after losing Iraq seems at best a consolation prize.
I too had held a conspiracy theory that I must now abandon. For years I thought that Turkey and Iran were secretly cooperating to reshape the middle east. The conflict in Syria now makes it impossible for mje to continue to hold on to this phantasie. If I was wrong about that what else could I have been wrong about?
Oh well at least I did not shoot anyone because I thought that they were part of a conspiracy that did not exsist.
What NRA supports really think but are smart enough not to say is, we do not care if there are 300,000 gun related crimes each year. That is a small price to pay to be able to keep an AR 15 and an Uzi under my bed. Furthermore we take the same theoretical risk as everyone else in being a victim üf such crimes And to top that of we secretly are pleased by gun crimes because victims of gun crimes tend to be overwhelming liberals who are secretly socialists who are secretly communists who are secretly Stalinists who are obviously stupid. So if we reverse this format we understand that we are cleverly culling our society of its intellectually infirior elements. Only a liberal would go to the movie Batman. After what Rush said about the movie any self respecting conservative would boycott the movie.
Iranian leaders have really screwed up. Had a tanker or even a warship been attacked in the Persian Gulf or near the Gulf and been blamed by the western MSM on Iran a huge number of Americans would have believed that it was a false flag operation. Now that the Iranian Parliment is actually discussing attacking ships in the area it will be taken by granted by all but a few people that it really was Iran which attacked the ships, yours truely included?
In the war that follows Iran will try to make it about US hegomony and the US will try to make it about freedom of travel in International waterways. Iran can not win such a debate because the US position will simply be, We are the world's ruler so what? Is it not clear that our rule which protects freedom of the high seas and the international trade which goes with it and the worlds economy which goes with that a better deal than you would get from any realistically possible alternative? Iran will bot get much support with their slogans. The future looks bleak for evwryone except US Arms Manufactures and Harry Mulisch, Alfred Hitchcock, John Lenon, and other dead people.
Russia today is reporting that the Iranian Parliment is considering a bill that would attempt to close the straits of Hormuz to ships going to ports in countiries refusing to buy Iranian oil.
It seems to me that disscusion of such a bill is insane.
This proposed bill could also easily be seen as a decleration of war. If it were to pass the powers that be in the US would not have much difficulty convincing the American people that it is only a matter of time, perhaps days, before Iran begins to implement such a policy. If the US leadership then ordered an attack on Iran international support support for Iran would be greatly reduced. The passage of this bill would suggest that the Iranian leadership wants war just as much as the US leadership. Even discussions of such a policy could be seen to indicate that there are powerful supporters of war inside Iran.
Dr. Juan Cole,
I was having Dinner with a Turkish neighbor yesterday.
I told him about some interesting Graffitti that i had seen last week. I told him that I had seen written on the side of a house, "As long as I have eyes I will continue to look, as long as I have feet I wil continue to move, as long as I can think I will continue to imagine, as long as I can stand I will continue to act."
My neighbor said that he had read this quote or one quite similar to it many years ago from an Arabic or Iranian Philosopher but he could not place it exactly.
Can you identify the source?
If your question, where do the questions come from, is asked about my questions about people who were poor and not poor in 1970, it comes from global warming.
How will people measure better in the future? Will they say things are better becuae not only can the top 20% of Americans can afford a 40 foot long camper but the top 80% can afford a 40 foot long camper?
Both major parties are discussing who will have more at a time in human history when every one, except the poor should have to get by with less, in some cases much much less.
To tell people that they have to learn to live with less is not a way that people get elected to lead. Such people can only lead with lead and that is not the American way now is it?
Does ANYONE who was not poor in 1970 deserve to be better off than they were in 1970? Does SOMEONE who was not poor in 1970 deserve to be worse off than they were in 1970?
Many years of speculation led me to the idea a long time ago that at the top levels of the US government there are no Democrats or Republicans there are just blood sucking imperialists. What some of the commentators have said just reinforces that picture. It was not just a few Hawkish neocons that tried start a war with Iran. As has been accurately pointed out the things that were done could not be done without all of the top people in the military knowing about it. If the top people of the State Department did not know that is because the military people did not think they deserved to be told because as far as the top military people are concerned the State Dept. counts for nothing because the Secretary of State controls fewer military assets than the Pope.
So if there was an attempt to goad Iran in to a war with the US it was a plan carried out not by a few Americans but by many.
If there was not an attempt by the US government leaders to goad Iran in to a war it does not mean that those leaders are innocent. It just means that becuase of events going on elsewhere they did not think that the timing was optimal
for such a war.
If the US is fighting a proxy war in Syria against Iran I would not think that it is a critical battle. the US has lost Iraq, it seems. To win Syria after losing Iraq seems at best a consolation prize.
I too had held a conspiracy theory that I must now abandon. For years I thought that Turkey and Iran were secretly cooperating to reshape the middle east. The conflict in Syria now makes it impossible for mje to continue to hold on to this phantasie. If I was wrong about that what else could I have been wrong about?
Oh well at least I did not shoot anyone because I thought that they were part of a conspiracy that did not exsist.
What NRA supports really think but are smart enough not to say is, we do not care if there are 300,000 gun related crimes each year. That is a small price to pay to be able to keep an AR 15 and an Uzi under my bed. Furthermore we take the same theoretical risk as everyone else in being a victim üf such crimes And to top that of we secretly are pleased by gun crimes because victims of gun crimes tend to be overwhelming liberals who are secretly socialists who are secretly communists who are secretly Stalinists who are obviously stupid. So if we reverse this format we understand that we are cleverly culling our society of its intellectually infirior elements. Only a liberal would go to the movie Batman. After what Rush said about the movie any self respecting conservative would boycott the movie.
Iranian leaders have really screwed up. Had a tanker or even a warship been attacked in the Persian Gulf or near the Gulf and been blamed by the western MSM on Iran a huge number of Americans would have believed that it was a false flag operation. Now that the Iranian Parliment is actually discussing attacking ships in the area it will be taken by granted by all but a few people that it really was Iran which attacked the ships, yours truely included?
In the war that follows Iran will try to make it about US hegomony and the US will try to make it about freedom of travel in International waterways. Iran can not win such a debate because the US position will simply be, We are the world's ruler so what? Is it not clear that our rule which protects freedom of the high seas and the international trade which goes with it and the worlds economy which goes with that a better deal than you would get from any realistically possible alternative? Iran will bot get much support with their slogans. The future looks bleak for evwryone except US Arms Manufactures and Harry Mulisch, Alfred Hitchcock, John Lenon, and other dead people.
Russia today is reporting that the Iranian Parliment is considering a bill that would attempt to close the straits of Hormuz to ships going to ports in countiries refusing to buy Iranian oil.
It seems to me that disscusion of such a bill is insane.
This proposed bill could also easily be seen as a decleration of war. If it were to pass the powers that be in the US would not have much difficulty convincing the American people that it is only a matter of time, perhaps days, before Iran begins to implement such a policy. If the US leadership then ordered an attack on Iran international support support for Iran would be greatly reduced. The passage of this bill would suggest that the Iranian leadership wants war just as much as the US leadership. Even discussions of such a policy could be seen to indicate that there are powerful supporters of war inside Iran.
Dr. Juan Cole,
I was having Dinner with a Turkish neighbor yesterday.
I told him about some interesting Graffitti that i had seen last week. I told him that I had seen written on the side of a house, "As long as I have eyes I will continue to look, as long as I have feet I wil continue to move, as long as I can think I will continue to imagine, as long as I can stand I will continue to act."
My neighbor said that he had read this quote or one quite similar to it many years ago from an Arabic or Iranian Philosopher but he could not place it exactly.
Can you identify the source?