WELCOME TO THE “WAR ON TERROR II …”
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a “Republican” congresswoman from Florida. She’s a “neoconservative,” which means she wants to liberally spend America’s blood and treasure on foreign entanglements. You know, entanglements like the 13-year, $6 trillion-plus “War on Terror” that has made America so safe we now have to go fight … wait for it … another “War on Terror.”
This time against an even bigger, stronger enemy (one we’ve been subsidizing, it’s worth pointing out).
Insanity? Yes of course … but after being rebuked a year ago, the military-industrial complex that’s going to profit from this new war has prevailed. The fearmonger offensive worked. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is officially in the crosshairs of
“In the wake of non-stop propaganda from politicians of both parties, as well as a mainstream media desperate for ratings, the American public is finally terrified enough to support another war in the Middle East,” Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg noted this week.
Exactly …
Anyway, Ros-Lehtinen stumbled (inadvertently, we’re sure) upon perhaps the most honest remark any of Amerika’s “war gods” have made regarding the “War on Terror II: Electric Boogaloo.”
“I’m glad people have this 9/11 mentality again,” Ros-Lehtinen said.
Wait? Glad?
Yup …“Glad.”
Never mind that trillions of dollars our future generations didn’t have to spare got flushed down the toilet in the last “War on Terror.” Or that thousands of lives have been lost – and thousands more will be lost if we pursue this reckless foreign policy.
Never mind that our government decided fighting the “enemy” meant shredding the very liberty we claim to be fighting for.
And never mind that this is the same “terrorist” group we were proposing to fight alongside in Syria just one year ago .
Seriously … and we’re the crazy ones?
America is afraid again. But that shouldn’t make any of us “glad.” Just like we shouldn’t have been “glad” to learn government was snooping through (and saving) our private texts, emails and internet search histories.
Here’s the thing: There is an enemy in the “War on Terror.” But it’s not ISIS – it’s ‘US.”
66 comments
Fear is freedom! Subjugation is liberation! Contradiction is truth! These are the truths of this world! And you will all surrender to them, you pigs in human clothing!
War Unites Us until It Divides Us.
There for a long time all we heard was that we owe China out the ying-yang. Did that debt mysteriously disappear? It seems that somewhere along the line the future costs of this war would bring up the topic of our many I.O.U’s.
I’m glad the fear is back to. I don’t feel as threatened as a liberal atheist when the loving Christian conservatives are able to focus their fury elsewhere.
Hope your Logic is right Johnney?
Stereotypes kill brain cells.
Wikipedia —
A Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been a notable Republican voice in favor of LGBT rights. In a Winter 2013 interview with the Human Rights Campaign, she stated that her support for same-sex marriage was based on “coming from Cuba, losing my homeland to communism, seeing the state control everything – I’m a person that believes in individual liberties and not having the government control everything.” When asked about her support for her son Rodrigo, a transgender LGBT rights advocate, Ros-Lehtinen commented that:
It’s important for families to support their children and to support their children’s choices. It’s important to listen to your children, accept your children and have your children know that you love them unconditionally. It’s not “I love you, but…”—there’s no “but.” “It’s just “I love you.” … To do otherwise is—you’re hurting yourself, you’re going to shun your child or grandchild. You’re going to say, “No, I have my views and my views are the perfect views and no one can have a different point of view. I’m right and everything else is wrong.” And that’s a lonely way to live. It just means you’ll be out of that person’s life, and who wants to be cut out of their child’s life?
My biggest fear is waking up to that face in the morning.
It’s hard to out ugly Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but this woman take the cake!
Nice War on Women. If they are not a subject of liberal perverts, they are worthless to your sexist @$$..huh? …and Ray Rice votes Democrat too…Dumb@$$…You are a real proud member of the party of raping and using Bill Clinton…
Shut the fuck up, hack. You’re constantly judging women’s looks on here with “hag” and Democratic women are ugly…” So, fuck you and your hypocritical bullshit.
I LOVE it when I Bust you for what you are, and blatantly show yourself to be…and you get it. LMAO…
PS: ‘Hag’ is a persona…and accurately describes Hillary, arms flailing, in a drunken-like slur saying…”What Difference Does it Make” Hahaha…Perfectly pegging THE NOMINEE makes you mad too. …
Ray rice? Tell us again about the GOP and the VAWA…
IR-L is a Miami-Dade type neo-con. She’s still holding out hope for a US invasion of Cuba and a return to the Batista glory days.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and
hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”- HL Mencken
Is that why you invented Global Warming, Black-Murdering police, All-Wife Beating husbands????…Dumb@$$..you just outed yourselves…
At least the GOP is scared of a REAL threat…not made up Bull-S#!* that only idiot liberals will buy…
H L Mencken also wrote: “I admit freely enough that, by careful breeding, supervision of environment and education, extending over many generations, it might be possible to make an appreciable improvement in the stock of the American negro, for example, but I must maintain that this enterprise would be a ridiculous waste of energy, for there is a high-caste white stock ready at hand, and it is inconceivable that the negro stock, however carefully it might be nurtured, could ever even remotely approach it. The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.”
Who cares, most people are racist to some degree and just don’t admit(and that includes blacks, browns, orientals, etc.), you probably included.
Very few are racist to the ugly degree expressed above, even in his own era among his peers. Mencken was pro-German and against democracy
True indeed, but he did support the rights of the Jews he so obviously despised and helped them escape Hitler (who he regularly criticized). He was an odd bird, and complicated…
He was an odd bird, and complicated…
It is possible to *dislike* a group of people (say liberals or lawyers or Ohio State fans and still like individuals among those groups.
Being a “racist anti-semite” does not [necessarily] equate to HITLER AND THE FINAL SOLUTION! (Venn diagram time) .
Similarly,as much as the media would have us believe it, what Ray Rice did is nowhere near equivalent to beating up a cowering woman because the canned PBR she brought you wasn’t open. Could it lead to that? Sure. Was it wrong? Absolutely. But it’s still not the same.
Precisely (although if my wife is bringing me a PBR in any state of container we have a problem). Debates about crime run into this exact problem on a nearly constant basis. In the mainstream media (and among the feel-good, I’m-so-much-smarter-about-the-world-than-you progressives) the discussion of race and crime usually sinks down to absolutist positions pretty quickly. Try to discuss black offender representation in the violent crime stats and you are immediately shouted down as a racist, even before the few who are willing to actually discuss the numbers blame them on “society.” It’s almost as if you won’t be allowed to hang out with your black buddy if you admit that on the whole people who may look like him offend at a higher rate.
My hero is that sloppy slothful layabout Onslow in the old Brit comedy series “Keeping Up Appearances.” As he sits on the couch watching soccer or something else he has a bet on on TV he notices that his beer is empty. He merely scows at the empty glass and his family scurries for a refill!
scowls
Half his close friends and associates were Jews.
His last publication ridiculed segregation.
He WAS an odd bird and complicated.
(USC once had a Mencken scholar in the English Department but I missed his time.)
Interesting cat, indeed. Some of his stuff is priceless.
So I will assume you feel the same way about Lincoln, correct?
No! Lincoln’s racist statements were ninety years earlier. People forget that there was a lot of racist opposition to slavery(poor whites who didn’t want to compete with slave labor). Lincoln was acting under the political restraints of his time which was key to his accomplishments. As a politician, Lincoln was trying to gather all the opposition to the extension of slavery.
Unlike HLM, Lincoln’s views evolved over time. By the time of his death Abe believed in equal rights for blacks. He met with blacks in socially equal settings and perhaps would have progressed further had he survived to old age.
“By the time of his death Abe believed in equal rights for blacks.”
I’d like to see your proof of this. Otherwise, one might think you a hypocrite.
If you’re an ideologue, you are never called a hypocrite, but if you take into account the uniqueness of each situation and have nuances in your views, you’re going to be called a hypocrite. So be it.
I simply asked for proof of your statement, suggesting that if you don’t have it that you might be considered a hypocrite.
I notice no proof. So be it.
You didn’t simply ask for proof.
I’d like to see your proof of this. Otherwise, one might think you a hypocrite.
“I don’t feel the need to justify myself.”
Good, as you obviously don’t feel the need to provide proof of your statements either.
Researching on my phone, Lincoln was trying to gradually end slavery while being politically reserved about it. As early 1849 he voted in Congress to end slavery in DC.
In 1858 during the Lincoln Douglas debates Lincoln made statements that by favoring restriction of slavery in the west, he didn’t favor the social equality of blacks. I can’t find where made similar statements afterwards, nor can I find positive statements of equality, except in regards to black soldiers more as a reward than a right. My phones 4G limits my research. If he didn’t repeat the statements of the 1858 campaign afterwards, I think that is significant.
“Researching on my phone”
Oh, I assumed you KNEW FOR SURE when you made the claim that “By the time of his death Abe believed in equal rights for blacks.”
Really, it’s an incredibly outlandish statement, one that you obviously made without actually knowing or you wouldn’t be now looking up things for proof of it.
Really, you should go back to not “feeling the need to justify”, otherwise you might have to start taking anti-depressants.
I now know what direction to lean towards when I read your statements down the road.
Easy bro! This is the comment section of a blog, not journalism. It started with the Congresswoman, then Mencken, then Lincoln. We know more than we did before. There is still a lot of controversy about Lincoln’s views on race. I doubt we will settle it here.
Excellent point. He wasn’t real crazy about democratic rule, either…
Any moment now, TBG expects y’all to release a video of H. L. Mencken dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an Atlantic City Casino…
Ha! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read a bunch of Mencken and I’m not prepared to throw him out of the NFL because of a few wacky views quite yet. Who among us doesn’t have a wacky view or two bouncing around in the belfry?
How would we* moderns be familiar with such terms as “brummagem, mountebank, and poltroon” without ol’ HLM?
*”Us,” for the homeschooled and churchschooled amongst us.
” Who among us doesn’t have a wacky view or two bouncing around in the belfry?”
Me! (LOL – can’t wait to see the response!)
Low hanging fruit, baby…I’ll pass! ;-)
Be careful who you quote. H L Mencken was a racist.
One of TBG’s favorite quotes was from a NAZI. Doesn’t diminish its veracity one iota.
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”
–Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
I DISAGREE!
“IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy”
BUT IN A DEMOCRACY IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO DETERMINE THE LEADERS.
How often have democracies with free elections and free press gone to war with each other?
I was about to post that one too.
Mencken–taken against the context of white America of 100 years ago–was far more tolerant than most. He believed in the precepts (if not the practice) of eugenics but so did almost everyone else. He (they) believed more was inherited than learned than we do now. But a century of learning has now passed. His low opinion of the culture (he thought genetic) of blacks matched his low opinion of white peasants in Europe and white rednecks in America. He similarly thought that crossing with the “baron’s” genes was the only feasible uplift for the peasants. He probably thought the southern rednecks unredeemable. He personally would have far more happily spent time with a black shoeshine “boy” as with a white Methodist preacher.
H L Mencken in September 1943, “…it is impossible to talk anything resembling discretion or judgment to a colored woman. They are all essentially child-like, and even hard experience does not teach them anything.”
1943 is not the eugenics era. He was an elitist. He despised the common man including the black shoeshine “boy”. The “boy” would be for his amusement not respect.
All society was for his amusement, not respect. He was an elitist for sure.
But he was FAR more disrespectful of white Methodists than he was of black anything. And FAR more often.
A mere skimming of his works will show that.
If I was stopped at the side of the road with car trouble, l would much rather have a black shoeshine “boy” or a white Methodist preacher coming down the road than H L Mencken.
H.L. Mencken, FTW!
Simply “HLM” to the knowing, just like “FDR.”
So FITS, you and Ravenel have no fear of terrorists on Jihad????…Wow, I can’t wait to have you and Ravenel protecting the country…NOT!!!!
We have fear of terrorists and jihad, but they become more fearsome when OUR government is sponsoring them and equipping them.
So FITS, you and Ravenel have no fear of terrorists on Jihad????
You can include TBG.
Here in SC…TBG AIN’T SKEERED!!
If TBG lived in Europe, he would be concerned. If TBG lived in the Levant, he would probably need a clean pair of shorts.
TBG doesn’t live there. TBG lives here.
Better them than a medicaid dependent trailer hobbit.
It doesn’t matter which Party, the “Let’s go fight for our principles against foreign devils” button is the first to get pushed when the populace starts noticing how crappy our leadership is. Then the funds start getting pumped into our economy via borrowing and like heroin in a junkie just lulls us back to dumboville, except we aren’t paying the dealer and he owns us now.
There is nothing crazier than a rightwing Miami Cuban.
Ayatollahs included.
Terrorism is like guerilla warfare. All the past 13 years has shown is that we learned nothing from Vietnam.
If these people, overwhelmingly Republican, want to fight these endless wars, then they need to support a draft and a war tax.
The war tax needs to be levied on the carried interest and capital gains and other tax breaks of the rich who have not had to send their children to fight and die since Richard Nixon ended the draft for the sole purpose of never again having enough Americans cycling through in a crazy war that it would inspire opposition; war by the 1%, but a real different 1% than the ones with 30% of the country’s wealth, is what he wanted and what he got.
Is “SC Politicall Digest” the same writer as BigT or Grand Tango, The writing style is identical.
Just wondering.
Is “SC Politicall Digest” the same writer as BigT or Grand Tango, The writing style is identical.
You’ve been there? [asks incredulously]
*looks around..starts sidling away…
But, yes. It is.
“You’ve been there?”
I think Roberto meant to say “Just wandering”
starts sidling away…
——-
I’m supposed to kill the bus driver
Obviously.
Let’s Crowdsource some money and send Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Hank Johnson on an all-expense paid *vacation* to Guam. Make reservations for both at the same end of the island.
Just to be safe, let’s send Sheila Jackson-Lee, Jim Clyburn, Debbie Wasserman-Schutlze, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and Miss Lindsey.
Ileana Ros y Adato was born in Havana, Cuba – raised Catholic and is now an Episcopalian. Ros-Lehtinen’s maternal grandparents were Sephardic Jews, originally from the Ottoman Empire, who had been active in Cuba’s Jewish community. She has two children, Rodrigo (born Amanda), a transgender LGBT rights activist, and Patricia Marie. She is also step-mother to Katherine and Douglas Lehtinen.
Ros-Lehtinen gave the first Republican response to the State of the Union address in Spanish in 2011, and gave the third in 2014. In September 2011, Ros-Lehtinen became the first Republican member of the U.S. Congress to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.In July 2012, Ros-Lehtinen became the first Republican in the House to support same-sex marriage.
Crazy as a loon, I suspect.
“I’m glad people have this 9/11 mentality again,” What a POS
Americans falling for this media propaganda should get beheaded. What a manipulated bunch of cowards americans have become.
Great Article. It’s nice to know that somebody with economic resources is trying to inform the public. I think everyone on this post agrees with your logic. There is a minority of american citizens that are not manipulated by the media. However we pay a price for this independence. The political and economic costs of non-conformity.