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The worst part about the red or blue state argument is that it can even carry over into the family household
*Reminds me of an interview on the 3rd with a couple from PA. She's 100% Republican/voted for Bush, and hubby is Demo and of course supported Kerry 100%. They both mentioned the strain of Election on their eldest daughter, 10 or 11 years old, who was extremely uneasy about telling her mother that she agreed with her dad and supported Kerry. :-\
Well, I'm not yet a parent, but I sure hope I wouldn't drag politics into my family life to that extent. My husband and I usually know when to stop discussing politics, and we often don't see eye-to-eye (he's much more conservative than I'll ever be, although oddly enough he's a staunch Democrat).
What was funny about the PA couple was the clothing they wore for the interview. Both looked to be in their early- or mid-40s: He (the "liberal Democrat") wore a toned-down, somewhat "blah" blue-green shirt with a faint pattern on it and she (the "conservative Republican") wore a black sleeveless dress with a cut in the fabric just above the bosom and a lot of silver jewelry; she looked like she was going to Las Vegas and he was going to mow the lawn. :laugh: I'm looking at the way both are dressed and then their professed political views, and I'm like -- :hm: Something didn't add up there, it seemed. :laugh:
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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So I find it easier in some ways not to argue the feeling but to argue the facts instead.
Unfortunately, that's not always possible. Too many so-called liberals "feel" more than they think.
What is going on now is the battle for a new consensus to replace the old "so called liberal media"
FOX is only one player. But FOX has the very clear goal of replacing the old eastern seaboard bias with their own.
I think that's a bit oversimplified. Speaking from experience, the vast bulk of people in the television field at least (news, entertainment, and advertising) are Left-leaning, some to an absurd degree. Consequently, "liberal media" is an accurate description, not because there's some conspiracy but simply that a group of liberals will have a liberal bent to anything they present, it can't be helped.
Then along comes Fox, billed as "fair and balanced". Everyone in the field that isn't a raging liberal wants onboard, consequently it ends up with a greatly disproportionate share of the Right-leaning people in the field.
Everyone has a bias, it can't be helped. We should never trust a single source. I want Fox News giving a Right-leaning perspective, CNN from the Left, C-BS news jumping up and down on the Left edge and Rush Limbaugh making fun of them for it. From that mess we can form a reasonably accurate picture.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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So black is white except when it is black or except when it is white?
Most people don't take the time to cross-check their news reports to form a middle perspective. Most people invariably side with the information that bolsters their preconcieved bias, giving it full credibility, then filter out any countering information that doesn't fit within their world view as biased or slanted.
What's going on only serves to polarize opinion instead of informing opinion.
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Most people don't take the time to cross-check their news reports to form a middle perspective. Most people invariably side with the information that bolsters their preconcieved bias, giving it full credibility, then filter out any countering information that doesn't fit within their world view as biased or slanted.
Yes, they do. So how is that an argument against divided media? Should we just have a single source with a controlled bias to inform those peons that are too lazy to question what they're told?
What's going on only serves to polarize opinion instead of informing opinion.
Public opinion is polarized because people have fundamental disagreements, not because the tele is dicating opinion to them. Divisiveness, sometimes bitter, is part of a free society.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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Big picture, isn't Vietnam less of a headache for us today than Korea?
Vietnam the nation, yes. Vietnam the war, no. Because of that failure and the misunderstandings surrounding it, the mindset exists in certain quarters that the American military is no longer capable of winning. Every time we send troops anywhere, it's compared to Vietnam. Gulf War 1 was going to be "Vietnam", then it wasn't. Afghanistan, now there was a 'Nam to rant over! Well, not really. Ooh, Iraq! Can we say "Vietnam"? None of these more recent engagements are comparable, in fact in a sense Vietnam wasn't even "Vietnam", in the mythical sense of an unwinnable war. Were it my call we probably would have let all of Indochina go commie if they so chose, just as we probably would have done Iran before Iraq. Real sneaky-like too. But in neither case was (or is) the war unwinnable, yet the spectre of Vietnam leads some to believe otherwise. That is the real lasting cost of the Vietnam war.
Might have to break everyone's 'Nam glasses. :hm:
Yup. We broke those 'Nam glasses in 1990. But now W has just bought us a new pair:
Kennedy sent General Gavin (WWII Commander of the 82d ABN) and General McCaulife (WWII 18th ABN Corps, Relieved Macarthur in Korea) to Viet Nam to advise on the growing conflict. They returned, reported to the President and testified to congress that 1. There were no vital American strategic interests at stake in Viet Nam; 2. That the political situation included a corrupt military junta in the south and a popular nationalist government in the north and that the guerilla conflict in the south had overwhelming public support; 3. That the terrain was extremely difficult and that the US Army was neither trained nor equiped for it and 4. That the strategic implication of increasing the American effort was a decent into quagmire. The dissenting voice in the government was Robert McNamara, fresh from General Motors and eager to prove his pet theories about warfare. (Reminiscent of Shinseki and Rumsfield)
Once again, I grow weary of FIGHTING the War on Terror. I want to WIN the War on Terror. Sending too few forces to Iraq and having Bremer waste 12 months making a huge FUBAR doesn't help win the War on Terror.
Cobra, pretend its 1961 or 1962. Was going into Vietnam a smart move?
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Cobra, pretend its 1961 or 1962. Was going into Vietnam a smart move?
And we come full circle...
It depends on why we go in. If all we're trying to do is keep some old French colony from going commie, who cares? Taking military action under that objective would be beyond pointless and crossing into the realm of stupidity.
On the other hand, if we chose an agressive policy not of Soviet containment but strangulation it might have had merit. Vietnam itself being treated as merely one piece of a much larger puzzle, insignificant on its own but connected with many others making it relevant. A concerted effort to one-by-one take the countries where communism tries to establish roots and turn them into a reflection of us.
In Vietnam we went in with the former objective. In the present conflict we are much closer to the second approach, though with some misconceptions and false assumptions that need correcting. Trying to draw a direct comparison between Vietnam and Iraq is to misunderstand the essential nature of the two conflicts and the mindset going in.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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More than is needed for containment. Less than is sufficient for strangulation. Whats the difference?
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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More than is needed for containment. Less than is sufficient for strangulation. Whats the difference?
Problems, mistakes and setbacks will always be seen in the context of what those directing the effort believe the mission is. If they think their objective is containment they can't win, every correction they make will be futile because the objective itself is futile, containment is merely deferring a problem a for another day, there is no "success" in such a policy.
On the other hand, if they believe that "strangulation" is the objective all adjustements will be toward that end. It requires bolder action than a containment approach, finally storming Fallujah in the case of Iraq or a large-scale invasion of the North in the case of Vietnam.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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