The Critical Edition

First a joke my friend sent:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher,whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.

The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Palin is a ‘Post Turtle”. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain.

‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, and she doesn’t know what to do while she’s up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with’.

Second, the Palin debate flow chart:

Palin scares the living daylights out of me, and I think, sadly, with her anywhere near the chief leadership position in America, we won’t have four more years of the Bush administration; we’ll have four years of the Bush administration minus whatever slight, vague, microscopic, nano-second-lasting bit of sense it has. I mean, the woman is talking about starting a shooting war with Russia.

But what’s just as scary as she is are some of those supporting her.

Here, for example, is the Forerunner’s three-point election plan:

1. Vote Constitution Party. (I vote my conscience and cannot support McCain even with Palin.)
2. Hope and pray for McCain/Palin to win. (I am an idealist, but also a realist!)
3. Pray for John McCain’s salvation and pray specific imprecatory prayers if he fails to pro-actively defend the sanctity of human life. (Source)

Pray for the Republican candidate’s death? I’d be terrified to know what sadistic things he requests God to do to Obama.

At least he’s not advocating a more active role like this fellow:

Jesus told us to love our neighbor, but hate the evil inside them. Sometimes, if the evil inside them is so great, our neighbor will have to be stoned. We do each stoning with sadness for the individual, but with brighter hopes for the community. (Source)

I swear, put this guy on an island with one extremist from each religion and turn it into a reality show — “The Weakest Extremist” or “Lost, for Good” — and save the planet as an added bonus.

With the recent “pig” nonsense, the endless ad hominem attacks, and the little “gimmicks” like Coulter’s continual reference to the Democratic candidate as “B. Hussein Obama,” I find myself often wondering whether we’re in an election cycle or in a second-grade playground, and I have to ask myself, “How stupid do Republicans think the American people are if they think this kind of name-calling, na-nanny-boo-boo nonsense is anything more than immature?”

Via Thud: Federal government involved in raids on protesters - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com.

Fareed Zakaria on America’s political system.

“We have lost the ability to [accept] any short term pain for long term gain. [...] We have become fat, and dumb, and happy, and arrogant. [...] Just as this world is opening up, we are closing down.”

Karen Kwiatkowski closes out Why We Fight with the answer the whole documentary has been implying.

Why do we fight? Has your answer changed?

Segment X shows all the cards. No more commentary than that is necessary.

Thoughts?

Segment IX includes the opening of Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-West Virginia) February 12, 2003 speech:

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level
must be contemplating the horrors of war.

Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent — ominously, dreadfully silent.

There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. (Source)

The failure of the Congress to debate the issue is stunning.

Segment IX also discusses the impact of being perceived to be against a strong defense can have on one’s career as a journalist, an “expert”, and of course a politician.

What would it take to get back to a place where individuals in the public sector didn’t constantly take into account the impact their views on the defense industry might have on their careers? Is it even possible to return to such a state?

Did the Bush Administration mislead the American public about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Did the Administration imply — directly or indirectly — a connection between Iraq and 9/11?

Part VIII starts getting to the real heart of the issue.

Did the media perform its role adequately in the months before the war?

We create our own monsters, both in the realm of psychological fears and in the realm of international relations. Segment VII points out how we created Saddam Hussein, supported him, and were a friend until his invasion of Kuwait.

Hussein was a textbook example of blowback.

Part VII also introduces the concept of a fourth element of the military-industrial complex:

1. The military
2. The defense industry
3. Congress
4. Think tanks

Kwiatkowski summarizes the problems of think tanks perfectly: People making policy who have zero accountability to the public. She then goes on to give a devastating insider view of the lead up to the war in Iraq.

Think tanks — good, bad, or neither?