BBC Blog Network

User Profile

exserviceman

Listed below are comments made by exserviceman between Saturday, 15th November 2008 and Friday, 21st November 2008.

«Newer
Older»

Confirming our prejudices 7:05pm on 21 Nov 2008 mdalerwill at 210
What is Obama's "Civilian National Security Force" for?

Obama Colorado speech 2nd July 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHmecy94z-M&feature=related
Confirming our prejudices 6:49pm on 21 Nov 2008 AsaScot at 175
I quote your paragraph here:-

"Anyone notice that the Whitehouse appears to have 'borrowed' one of Obama's policy ideas? The new deal on US troops in Iraq promises a withdrawal of US forces by 2011, guess a fixed timtable wasn't such a terrible idea after all..."

My Reply:
The surge brigades had to fight and clear AQI from their strongholds. There was a year of bloody fighting. Obama was completely against the surge.

Its one thing for Petraeus to suggest a 3 year timetable *after US forces have won a huge victory* and something completely different for Obama to suggest an 18 month plan while AQI is still very much alive and kicking with the battle still raging.

Historical example:
D-day minus one, June 5th 1944, US, UK and Canadian forces are ready to mount a "surge" into Normandy

May 7th-9th 1945
Nazi forces totally defeated.

Without considering the different military situations on those two different dates, cutting and pasting the withdrawl timetable from 1945 ontop of 1944 is nonsense.

The situation on the ground is more important than a plan made of words with no date stamp.
Confirming our prejudices 07:52am on 21 Nov 2008 allmymarbles at 164.
Where did you go to work? Africa and South America, or the Far East?

From the time difference, you might currently be in California or elsewhere on the west coast?

I am stuck on a little Island in the English Channel currently, out of work.

I was in Kenya for about 6 weeks in 1990, wow that was hot on the coast. Big spiders in the desert parts, little critters were about the size of a man's palm and fast!

People were friendly though, still remember quite well dressed kids on their way to school, walking through all this vibrant green folliage. Odd how some things seem to stay in my memory. Bumpy roads and bright sunshine.

I was really sad to see the political disputes/problems there, fingers crossed they are in the past now.
Confirming our prejudices 06:55am on 21 Nov 2008 allymymarbles at 162.
Give me a clue here, are you a student or teacher?

If you explain why you thought Mccain fought an "ultra-right wing campaign" [I tried to list all the things that were wrong about it] we might be able to understand each other. Just a few points would help :-)
Confirming our prejudices 06:05am on 21 Nov 2008 allmymarbles at 158
The bit about Mccain's campaign I really felt uncomfortable with was Palin on being questioned about "should a person who bombs a abortion clinic be called a terrorist or not"

She ducked it. Up till that point I actually liked the woman, afterwards I felt the same kind of disorientation that hit me after Abu Graib. In some ways shes couragous, yet she can't see how wrong she is on that issue.

After that she was never the same in my eyes. I actually know 2 women who have had to go through that unfortunate experience, and the thought of some nut killing or injuring them or young women like them with a bomb is just horrible.

Lord allmighty these women have suffered enough, leave them be.

The robocalls were a mistake, even if I did agree with the content. Its wrong to spam peoples phones with irritating political calls, let alone ones that mislead and don't ID what they are immediately.

I don't know if the calls were just because Mccain couldn't afford the TV and was desperate - or just to keep those creepy campaign operatives from working for others and saying out and out vicious lies.
Confirming our prejudices 05:20am on 21 Nov 2008 Simon21 at
"you seem to have problems separating allegations from fact"

No, I am 43 and have studied history in my own quiet way my whole life.

Obama uses classic communist party tactics to infiltrate and seize leadership control of a democratic political party.

That would normally be impossible from a standing start, but he did not start from square one. The DSA/CP USA groups always held positions within the Democratic party especially in Chicago, they payed a key role in sabotaging Fannie May and Freddie Mac on an *epic* scale.

Here are a few of the DSA friends in action:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related

Now this same faction has control of the presidency and is working to control as many senate seats as possible - when they get to 60 Obama is in postion to replace any appointee to Defense, NSA and DHS with no delay.

This is why Hillery is being offered a Secretary of State position, they want her senate seat under their control - and obviously do not want her husband or other loyal American in it.

When Obama is ready to cross the Rubicon, he can [with great relish no doubt] throw her overboard and replace her and any other mainstream Democratic cabinet members still surviving with a hard core ideologues loyal only to "The One".

Then its time to execute a full scale coup.
Confirming our prejudices 04:42am on 21 Nov 2008 allmymarbles at 151
I think I agree with Michael Bloomberg about allmost everything. I am from the UK so his position on gun control and abortion is completely natural to me.

Even the ID card thing is a good idea if the federal government is of good will and efficient skill in administration, in the UK. In the US it will have Libertarians opening fire on law enforcement people.

Bloomberg could never have been a presidential candidate for the Republican party with those positions, and his religious identity would rule out strong block-support from evangelical Christians who plague Repuplican primaries, i.e. North Carolina.

This is not anti-semitic as opposed to just being able to identify closely with the religion of the presidential candidate. I find that truely sad - but I am an agnostic from the UK and I have to observe the evidence of my own eyes.

The only exception to my policy agreement seemed to be he dosn't favor the DHS border wall in the south of the country - I would strongly advocate it to protect the status of the English Language.

If you have large areas of the US with different Mono languages dominating, these can become different countries over the long term.

At the moment people are still learning English slowly, if the Immigration from South America grows back to its earlier scale people in the South West will stop bothering to learn English. Therein lies partition and disaster.

My view is that Maccain is much closer to Bloomberg than Obama. That is because I do not actually believe Obama's word on what he says his program will be. What do you see when you look at him?

Bloomberg must stand for the Democratic party as a presidential candidate if he wants to be P.O.T.U.S, an Independent will always fail. Therefore after his current term as NY Mayor he will rejoin the Democratic party.

He would have made a great Democratic party candidate in 2012, but of course he would never be nominated by that party as it is actually close to being permanently controlled by Barack Obama's DSA/CP USA faction.

I think You are dead wrong about how most people come to a view on voting. The overwhelming majority of the electorate makes an emotional decision based on a shallow TV impression, and then paste that ontop of what their parents drummed into them as kids as a kind of cultural substrate.

Those two factors get weighed together as people process each candidate, then out pops their choice.

Some of the people with brains do look at the policies and then selectively remember their favourite bits about the candidate they have allready picked.

The only exception might be that women realise Mccain is pro-life and Obama is pro-choice, because for them it truely could be a personally life altering decision.

You and I are in a tiny minority who actually look at the other policies of the parties and candidates.

The difference between us is that I think one of the candidates has not given an accurate account of his true intentions to the American people, and he has won the popular vote.

So to sum up, your counter example of a brilliant administrator yet uncharismatic Mayor fails because he can't carry that over to a presidential election for either party, and will automatically fail as an independent candidate.

Care to have another go?
Confirming our prejudices 9:24pm on 20 Nov 2008 I would just like to say Zeigler's questions were not neutral, some of them contained elements of partisan conservative criticism of Obama. Its hardly surprising a mainstream TV network audience had no clue.

However as an editor, Justin himself knows how easy it is to change the meaning of news broadcasts by story selection, and chopping video and speach into snippets.

The real bias is that TV media prefer a candidate who is a great TV performer, with eloquence, who is tall, physically handsome [ok I am relying on views of female family members there] and charismatic.

There is also the fact that he represents a historically put upon minority reaching the pinnacle of the highest responsibility in the USA - a tremendously poweful news story that will run for years giving high ratings.

Diana Syndrome.

If Obama was white, 5' 5", fat and spoke in a monotone do you think anyone would listen to his "progressive" political program?

Any fact that got in the way of the juicy "Diana" story above would have to be played down and minimized.

The economic collapse came as a huge gift to Obama politically - it greatly helped to wash away all TV media doubts about some of his more unfortunate past [?]associations.

That would normally be fair, Obama is from the opposition party,- except for the democratic parties finger prints all over Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac. Heck never let the truth get in the way of a juicy story.

Justin also knew about the Hillery campaign's claims about Obama's people cheating in the caucas primaries.

He swallowed the Obama spin and failed to check - o.k. there is time pressure and lack of resources -we are all human.

However, Obama got a boost in *every* caucus that his share of the popular vote should not have given him. That is a clear indication of something going wrong.

That cheating tells you more about the kind of man Obama is than any TV broadcast. What was cheated and subverted was a democratic process.

If you don't believe in democracy as a politician, just what do you believe in?

IMHO Obama believes in the ruthless pursuit of power by any means necessary, and that the "negative rights" in the constitution will not prevent him from realizing his ideological objectives by "administrative measures."

America's problem is the devotion, unquestioning loyalty and love of many of Obama's supporters - he can do no wrong in their eyes.

This video is pregnant with the future of America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA0RuvtsiVY

I hope to God I am wrong about this man that everyone in my country and worldwide likes so much.
American exceptionalism 00:30am on 15 Nov 2008 allmymarbles at 202

One phone call from Obama to a lawyer in Hawaii, one certified copy of the Vaulted birth certificate and a press conference.

Thats all it takes to put the issue to bed for good.

Its the secrecy that drives speculation and law suits.
American exceptionalism 00:13am on 15 Nov 2008 nessie1945 at 198
The point Berg makes about the "one US parent" situation is that under the law at that time the sole US parent must be 19 years old to confer natural born citizenship on a child born in a soverign third country.

Ann Dunham was 18 when Barack Obama was born - so hence the problem.

I am not a lawyer, and I can't tell you that Berg is right or wrong, or even that he has quoted the right law.

I very much doubt S.C.O.T.U.S. will even pick up the case directly unless there is a fumble on the goal line by Obama's layers.

As for Mccain using the issue, forget it. Mccain pulled at lot of punches, especially on Rev. Wright. If it had been Romney as the republican candidate you would have heard "God DAMN America!!" morning, noon and night, and "US of KKA" "US Gov designed AIDS" before your cornflakes at breakfast time.

There is also something about the way Wright and Pflegger's did a little dance/jig after they hit a punchline in their church speaches, a golden Gift for any twisted TV political add designer/editor.

There is also a video on youtube where someone has cut Wright's "week after 911 speech" inbetween the twin towers being hit, the Flight 93 crash site and a burning Pentagon. It is completely devastating, it gets you right in the gut, chokes you up.

In a very real way I am relieved Mccain spared us from that. It would have poisoned race relations in America for 10 years.

I say this from the UK, but can no one in the US see that it is an act of patriotism to pull a victorious punch because the ends do not justify the means?

It is no surprise to me Mccain was not interested in this low level stuff - he expected the independent media to investigate any qualifications problems.

A massive over estimate in the integrity of the average US Network TV journalist in my opinion.

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

exserviceman