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Total number of comments: 20 (since 2013-11-28 16:56:59)

BruceJ

Showing comments 20 - 1
Page: 1

  • The Mystery of Washington's Iran Derangement Syndrome
    • BruceJ 05/31/2017 at 7:51 pm with 1 replies

      "There’s an uncomfortable truth that Washington needs to face: U.S. policy toward Iran Cuba hasn’t achieved its goals despite almost four six decades of effort since an American-installed American-supported autocrat was overthrown there in 1979 1957."

      Washington has a long history of fruitless vendettas.

  • Why Trump's nominee for envoy to Israel is Setting off Alarm Bells
    • BruceJ 12/23/2016 at 9:23 am

      "BUT that land has millions of non-Jews that Israel can not export or kill – NOW WHAT?"

      At this point in history, I would not discount either possibility.

      The entire world seems to be rapidly spinning into a right-wing authoritarian nationalist mode; the echoes of 1932 are getting louder every day.

      Trump's supporters are perfectly fine with an 'exterminate the brutes' policy, are perfectly willing to blame victims for their own problems, and clearly want loud tough guy in charge, especially if 'the brutes' are Muslim.

      It's also unclear what pressure, if anything, could actually be brought to bear against the US for their support of Israel, or can be credibly blamed for making his supporters lives worse despite Trump's tweets (after all, they fervently believe we are worse off than we were in 2009, despite all evidence provided by reality. )

      Trump's true talents lie in deflecting blame to convenient scapegoats, and too many of his fundagelical supporters will demand that the US back Israel to the utter end to allow him to scapegoat Israel.

      His racist non-fundagelical supporters will be all too happy to support the persecution of Muslims.

      His plutocratic supporters see war and unrest as profit centers, so it's truly unclear just how any of them could be turned against a US policy supporting ever tougher Israeli measures against non-Jews in their territories.

  • Return of Virulent Nationalism: how language is being used to mark national borders
    • BruceJ 10/06/2016 at 6:23 pm

      English, a language that has been described as "not so much borrowing words from other languages, but following them down dark alleys, mugging them and rifling their pockets for vocabulary"? THAT language is going to be 'irreversibly damaged' by immigrants?

      That's possibly the silliest thing I've heard all week!

  • Are the Muslim Khans better Americans than Donald Trump?
    • BruceJ 07/31/2016 at 2:15 am

      He has too sacrificed! He's sacrificed investors he's bailed from in bankruptcies, he's sacrificed numerous businesses large and small by refusing to pay them for work performed, he's sacrificed hundreds of others in lawsuit after lawsuit, all in the noble pursuit of his own enrichment and ego...

  • Are Cruz And Kasich smart enough to stop Trump?
    • BruceJ 04/26/2016 at 9:59 am

      No.

      This has been episode #12,345 in the ongoing series "Very Short Answers to Obvious Questions" 🙂

  • Now that Trump has mainstreamed White Supremacists, are they in Politics to stay?
    • BruceJ 04/03/2016 at 12:13 pm

      Your article and title rather wrongly implies they ever left the mainstream.

      White Supremacy has been a mainstay of American Politics since the beginning of American Politics.

      It's occasionally been quieter than it is now , for short periods of time, but it has always been there.

  • Fearmongering against Muslims is a Bipartisan Sport & Hurts us All
    • BruceJ 12/19/2015 at 12:16 pm

      Not more 'bothsidesdoit' nonsense, again.

      No, just because one Democrat says something that 3,456 Republicans are saying, that does not make it 'bipartisan' or 'all of us'.

      This corrosive and divisive rhetoric is being injected into US society only from one direction, and that is the same nativist, anti-immigrant reactionary fever swamps of the Know Nothings right that it always has.

      That we have a passive, timorous media unwilling to point this out is a condemnation of our national media.

      Alas, it's ALSO an accurate reflection of the role the media has largely played throughout our country's history: as the mouthpiece for the power structure. There have been brief moments when the media actually did 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable' but in the main, it's been the means by which people wealthy enough to buy ink by the barrel have used to promote their agenda.

      Just as an example: in WWII there was not the call to intern Italian and German Americans the way Japanese Americans were, and moreover, Japanese Americans in arguably the single most sensitive US military installation in the Pacific, Hawaii, were NOT interned; only on the West Cost, where, by amazing coincidence *wink wink* wealthy white business interests just HAPPENED to heroically (for the good of the country, mind you!) seize the businesses and property that the interned Japanese were forced to leave.

      As always, just follow the money.

      Ginning up anti-muslim hysteria is excellent news for the Industrial-Antiterrorism Complex.

  • US view of Iraqi Army, before & after 2003 (Political Cartoon)
    • Brucej 06/08/2015 at 4:49 pm

      @Justin

      The US had more Seventeen Star Generals than Al Qaida members in Iraq before 2003. AQI/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever they're called this week is entirely and completely a creation of US policies in Iraq post invasion.

      Remarkably like Al Qaida is entirely and completely a creation of US policies in Afghanistan in the 80's...

  • Egypt Bans "Exodus: Gods and Kings", saying Jewish Slaves did not build Pyramids
    • BruceJ 12/29/2014 at 8:12 pm

      Never mind Hollywood...we should expect historical accuracy from a Bible story???

      All the evidence we have shows that the people who built the Pyramids were skilled workers, and as Juan mentions, paid quite well for their efforts.

      It was a big public works project; and injected a lot of wealth into the Egyptian economy. Kept people fed, paid and happy (and not revolting!).

      Might as well call Rameses II Keyneses I 🙂

  • Gen Dempsey: US Considering Ground Troops in Iraq
    • brucej 11/14/2014 at 3:23 pm

      "And we're knee-deep in the big muddy..." link to youtube.com

  • The Alamo of the Kurds: Kobane Near Falling to ISIL
    • BruceJ 10/04/2014 at 1:58 pm with 2 replies

      If only (A-10) the US had some (A-10) airpower resource (A-10) that was specifically designed (A-10) to attack ground targets like enemy armor and artillery (A-10).

      Sigh

  • Elon Musk's Nevada Gigafactory may Save the World
    • BruceJ 09/07/2014 at 1:45 pm with 2 replies

      You clearly don't really understand the water situation of the desert southwest. We're on the verge of a once-per-thousand-year drought. The last time this happened here entire civilizations were wiped out.

      This is a horrible place to build this factory; the issue isn't build/don't build the factory, the issue is where to build it, which is being driven by concerns other than environmental, to wit: what states taxpayers are most willing to fork over the billions of dollars in incentives for a few thousand jobs. This factory belongs someplace with sufficient resources to support it: water, transportation hubs, etc.

  • Top 5 Signs Cliven Bundy is Wrong about African-Americans
    • BruceJ 04/26/2014 at 12:50 pm

      You *might* think that Bundy would have noticed that the only person 'picking cotton' these days is the combine driver? In fact it's been mechanized since his distant ancestors settled his ranch in 1946...link to en.wikipedia.org

  • Rep. Mike Rogers Says Snowden's To Blame For Russia's Aggressive Actions Against Ukraine
    • BruceJ 03/25/2014 at 8:05 pm

      No, no, no...you have it all wrong. Obama engineered Putin's takeover of Crimea as a distraction from Benghazi! We have to keep all the threads straight here.

      More seriously, I would SO much like at least ONE member of our vaunted free press to ask the likes of McCain or Rumsfeld or Bolton just precisely what they would do?

      Are they REALLY in favor of starting WWIII? Is 'Dr. Strangelove' the exception to history, first as Comedy THEN as Tragedy?

  • Broken Democracy: Republicans poised to take Senate, Americans Reject their Platform
    • BruceJ 02/05/2014 at 9:09 am with 1 replies

      This is really not that complex, and it has less to do with 'big money' in politics than old-fashioned hard politicking.

      Back in the 70's conservatives started doing the hard work of becoming a political power: running for office, dog catcher, school board, city council, on to state legislators and up. They build a powerful coalition based on getting their own out to vote when it mattered.

      Meanwhile the center-left were not "members of any organized political party, they were Democrats", to quote a famous populist Democrat.

      You have to start at the grass roots, and run people in every election for every office. This should be the goal of any progressive political group: "Every office, Every election." They will lose. A LOT. Over and over again. But people will start winning, and more to the point, people will hear those opposing views, and if they resonate as much as opinion polls do, they will start winning elections.

      It's a long, hard slog, but imagine what we could do with state houses full of people like Elizabeth Warren. Our side hasn't really had to do this since the turn of the last century, but this is what's needed.

  • Turkey's Secretive Gulen Movement Challenges its Prime Minister as Religious Right Splits
    • BruceJ 01/01/2014 at 5:07 pm

      They're also deeply involved in the charter school movement here in the US. link to washingtonpost.com

  • EPA finally catches a Fracking polluter in the Act, levies Largest ever Civil Penalties
    • BruceJ 12/28/2013 at 5:00 pm

      $9 million dollars? This represents, what, a weeks profits? This is 'cost of doing business' penalties not 'don't do this anymore' penalties.

  • NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends
    • BruceJ 08/24/2013 at 5:28 pm

      Also not mentioned here:

      CONTRACTORINT...What the hordes of non-NSA analysts...(like Edward Snowden) have done with their unprecedented access to American communications.

      Gee, wonder if Booz, Allen's wondrous success in attracting government contracts is attributable to more than their cozy relationships with the Washington elites.

  • Where is our Amsterdam? Lavabits, Snowden & Wikileaks Censorship recall age of Absolutism
    • BruceJ 08/09/2013 at 6:05 pm with 1 replies

      Minor nit: prohibiting government employees from reading erstwhile classified information is hardly the same as the Pentagon Papers case. That the Wikileaks cables were published does not affect their classification status, legally, and it's perfectly acceptable to prohibit Government employees from accessing information above their classification grade.

      It's absurd, true, but not an assault on the First Amendment.

      The Administration is NOT prosecuting the Times for printing the Wikileaks cables.

      And still no one is seriously bringing up the issue of why on earth some contractor, after a few months on the job, was allowed access to all of these systems. It implies there are thousands and thousands of private contractors with such access...and surely some number of them are willing to use their access for nefarious means, from garden variety extortion to insider trading, on up to private or state-sponsored espionage; because, frankly, the average American is far more likely to be harmed by those activities than the NSA spying on us.

  • In Chilling Ruling, Chevron is Granted Access to Amazon Activists' Private Emails
    • BruceJ 07/12/2013 at 3:43 pm

      Come now, this is just a civil action between persons.

      And as we all know, all persons are equal; it's just that some are more equal than others.

      What's even worse, is that the Judge seems unaware that even foreigners have First Amendment rights in the United States, where this trial and the records in question reside.

      But, of course, since we're not really a constitutional republic any more, but a corporate oligarchy with a thin veneer of democracy-like features, we can only hope that some other person equal to Chevron takes an interest in this case, if only so that all the rest of us mere fleshbag persons can ride along on their more equal corporate coattails.

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