I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources.
When I was in Beijing earlier this year, I too noted the many new buildings that were built especially for their olympics. They now stand EMPTY. Those shiny new buildings cost many residents to lose their homes where they lived for generationS.
One of the public shames of Beijing is that its building boom has destroyed most of the city's old hutong neighborhoods of traditional courtyard houses, whose residents are often forcibly relocated to make way for projects that enrich local officials and developers.
Also, my loathing for the corporate media reach high peaks during the Beijing Olympics. As the Chinese government repressed, tortured and murdered its own citizens, the western corporate media dutifully turned a blind eye to hawk their corporate sponsors wares. Whores!
And just so I am not completely off topic . . .
Obama campaigned that he would end the Afghan war.
In a time of economic recession and health care crisis, this war is costing $2 billion EACH MONTH. Obama is not ending the Afghan war, he is ESCALATING it. Obama went ahead and boosted U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan by 17,000 this past Spring. An additional 40,000 troops will now be added. With undoubtedly more in the future when this surge also doesn't change things (Vietnam anyone?). Both Dem and Repub Administrations know that the art of "escalation of war mongering" needs to be done quietly and incrementally or an apathetic public just may react.
I said before, Obama is gonna keep to a muddled strategy with continuing civilian deaths that will only create more terrorists against Amerika. Who STILL disagrees with this?
Lastly, Oni, NYC is a bit far from Buffalo. Ever do shows in Toronto? I love Toronto. Certainly the best thing about living in Buffalo is that TO is just an hour or two drive away.
In a time of economic recession and health care crisis, this war is costing $2 billion EACH MONTH. Obama is not ending the Afghan war, he is ESCALATING it.
Which he plainly and REPEATEDLY said he would do during the campaign!
Fuck! Do people READ anymore!?
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson
He never said his plan was to escalate the war in an effort to specifically kill civilians. His plan was supposedly different than Bush Jr's because "His" plan would be "effective" in eventually ending the Afghan war.
It's not.
Civilian deaths are uniting all factions against the US and will lead to more terrorist attacks against the US. I still am dumbfounded to why this so confuses people.
If you read my other posts in this very same thread you will realize that I also disagree with Obama on Afganistan. You are acting like it is some kind of HUGE suprise that Obama is escalating the war when that is exactly what he said he would do.
Your well-poisioning snarkiness about civilian deaths is irrelevant to the point I was making which is that nobody with half a brain who was paying attention to the campaign thought that Obama was getting us out of Afganistan.
Civilian deaths are uniting all factions against the US and will lead to more terrorist attacks against the US. I still am dumbfounded to why this so confuses people.
I agree with you! Just don't fucking misrepresent! If this was your main issue then I take it you wasted your vote on Bob Barr? Or Dennis Kusinich or Ron Paul?
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson
While campaigning, Obama said his escalating Afghan strategy, as opposed to Bush's, would be successful.
It wasn't.
The huge surprise is that many, many voters fell for it.
Hence the topic of the thread.
. . . we seem to agree here, yes? So what's with the hostility?
Now, regarding your snarki last line:
I would never vote for a candidate that believes killing civilians is an effective way to end a war. Yes, you're quite correct, I would rather waste my vote than vote for that type of candidate.
I can't see the video but based on your other statements, do you consider yourself libertarian?
Not sure. I don't like labels, it seems to divide us. I see good and bad in all political views. Anytime I ever took a test to see what I am, I seem to fall in the middle every time.
One thing I can't stand is invasion of freedom, and being protected from myself by a government full of rules. At the same time I understand the need for some rules, to protect people from people.
While campaigning, Obama said his escalating Afghan strategy, as opposed to Bush's, would be successful.
It wasn't.
I think your suffering from the same "are we there yet?" mentality as RR. I happen to be of the OPINION that escalation will not work. But I also KNOW for a FACT that applying any kind of alternate strategy for 10 months to a problem that is 8 years in the making is not going to produce the results that we want. I am absolutly NOT giving Obama the beneift of the doubt but I certainly see no reason for this out right bitchiness about how everything is not fixed yet.
As much as I personally support withdraw from Afganistan, I also recognize that such a thing would also be considered a failure. Its just a "better" failure IMO than staying in.
I would never vote for a candidate that believes killing civilians is an effective way to end a war. Yes, you're quite correct, I would rather waste my vote than vote for that type of candidate.
You really believe that Obama supports killing civilians? And please don't give me a moralizing answer about how he must support killing civilians since he is keeping us in Afganistan. I am trying to make this not-as-snarky so making that assumption may be crossing a line but I would like to head this point off at the pass. Reality is not so black and white and would not even be so for even the MOST anti-war president you could have imagined winning last election in your wildest dreams.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson
You just seem to speak about "government" as if we lived in a dictatorship. I'll be the last person to deny the problems we have in this nation but it is still MORE of a reflection of the will of the people than most of the nations on earth.
The government IS US! "We" are the government. "We" just also happen to be stupid as sin.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson
Re: How in the hell to you spend $48.2 M on a bid?
I don't know what they were doing, but such frivolous overkill would have a negative impression on me, if I was on the receiving end of the "bid".
Same here. And we're not alone.
Here's an article if you'd like to check it out, from ESPN Chicago, a mainstream news source, reporting the same thing.
quote:Same thing goes for the Olympics. The IOC provides the product (the copyrighted Olympic rings, the athletes and the cachet) and in return, cities spend tens of millions on the bid process and billions on the infrastructure, facilities, transportation and security for the Games themselves. The Chicago bid cost an astounding $48 million plus, and the price tag for the operating budget is an estimated (emphasis on estimated) $3.8 billion and another $1 billion (estimated) on construction.
Nobody asked if we actually wanted the Olympics here. They just did it, just as the Chicago City Council decided recently to guarantee any financial shortfalls. Chicago Olympic committee officials insist there will be no shortfalls, that the City Council's vote simply eases the minds of IOC members, that the last three U.S.-based Olympics (Los Angeles, Atlanta and Salt Lake City) finished with financial surpluses. Then again, what do you expect organizers to say? That cost overruns are likely? That the budget for the 2012 Games in London has nearly tripled from the original estimates?
In a time of economic recession and health care crisis, this war is costing $2 billion EACH MONTH. Obama is not ending the Afghan war, he is ESCALATING it. Obama went ahead and boosted U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan by 17,000 this past Spring. An additional 40,000 troops will now be added. With undoubtedly more in the future when this surge also doesn't change things (Vietnam anyone?). Both Dem and Repub Administrations know that the art of "escalation of war mongering" needs to be done quietly and incrementally or an apathetic public just may react.
The part that continues to bother me, is that no one is paying any attention to what the Afghan people want!
This is baffling. It's a lot about US and British concerns, and it's obvious in both Obama's and Brown's speeches on the subject. Neither of them ends their talks with, "Oh yea, and the Afghan people don't fuck'n want us there." That, and that alone, is reason to get the hell out of there.
But you're right, it is war mongering, and done very under the radar with promises that it would be a more meritorious war in Afghanistan. Lies, and more lies. And all the while, the people in Afghanistan want us out. So much so, that they are now willing to negotiate with the Taliban and to creation of a coalition government that will include the Taliban leadership. So what's the fucking point of staying in there?
quote:Despite all this, a solid 64% of Afghans thought 'the government in Kabul should negotiate a settlement with Afghan Taliban in which they are allowed to hold political offices if they agree to stop fighting'. However, Afghans favoured preconditions to such talks: 71% said the government should 'negotiate only if the Taliban stop fighting'.
64% of British people also think 'America and Britain be willing to talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to achieve a peace deal'. (Sunday Times, 15 March 2009)
Talks are only meaningful if the other side is willing to play their part. It seems, in the case of Afghanistan, that there is serious interest in a national reconciliation process on the part of the Taliban and the Karzai administration - but that these negotiations are being blocked by the United States and Britain, who are determined to achieve a military victory.
Why though? Why are they determined to "acheive military victory" when the people, the civilians of that country, have stated what they want?
This is an example of war mongering at it's finest, further continued now by the Obama Admin.
I said before, Obama is gonna keep to a muddled strategy with continuing civilian deaths that will only create more terrorists against Amerika. Who STILL disagrees with this?
To the point that they have now given one of the terrorist organization that the US set out to destroy a seat on the new Afghan government.
Shall we pause for an applause break now?
- Oni
Lastly, Oni, NYC is a bit far from Buffalo. Ever do shows in Toronto? I love Toronto. Certainly the best thing about living in Buffalo is that TO is just an hour or two drive away.
I do make it to Canada ever now and again, not TO, but close. When I do I will definitely hit you up!
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