Go to An Unfortunate Outburst of Intense Patriotism
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- Go to Germany to Prosecute Rumsfeld, Other American Leaders for War Crimes?
Another thought on Michael Moore as working class
I'm sure that the great majority of the working class in Michigan, home of perhaps the worst economy in the country, would love to be as working class as Moore is.
And, Blanche, did you notice that I refrained from making discourteous, uncivil remarks about ways other than finances in which the Big Boy is loaded? 
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 14, 2006 at 6:20 PM
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I have a question for Blanche and Professor Peabody:
You have challenged my credibility in criticizing the criticisms leveled at President Bush, the military and the war on terror because I have not served in the military.
If the reasoning behind that challenge is sound, then how is it that you folks have any credibility in criticizing Bush if you have never served as President?
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 14, 2006 at 6:18 PM
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Michael Moore is working class?
The guy is loaded. Very wealthy, hardly the template of the working class.
As for talk shows, maybe you should expand your horizons a little. I can also recommend several websites, including www.drudgereport.com, http:NewsBusters.org and www.newsmax.com.
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 13, 2006 at 7:50 PM
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I'm not listening to the same talk shows you are, thankfully, Writer, but
I can tell you that Michael Moore is a good, working class documentary maker from Michigan, whose patriotic zeal drove him to make a documentary called Roger and Me, to figure out where all the jobs, big business sent overseas.
I can't speak for Cindy Sheehan, but if my son died in Iraq, I'd be pretty outspoken against the war, too. Come to think of it, I am.
I have reflected. Perhaps you could turn some of that candid reflection inward, fore you cuse me and others, take a look at your own party and admit to a few flaws.
posted by
Blanche.
on November 13, 2006 at 7:21 PM
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Thanks, Ariel . . .
for the insight!
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 13, 2006 at 7:15 PM
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Xenox . . .
please tell me you aren’t equating Jim Crow, Wounded Knee et al with Auschwitz. If you are, then you are playing right into my hands viz a viz my response to Blanche.
Also, do you not consider the “culture” of Islamic terrorism to be evil? If not, why not?
And to refresh your memory – legal and military action taken against known and suspected terrorists and their supporters is taken in direct response to attacks made on this country, its military and its citizens. This German prosecutor is coming to the aid of our enemies, when we have done nothing but help his country.
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 13, 2006 at 7:14 PM
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Thanks, Blanche! However . . .
You need to reflect on some of the rhetoric from the left. You don’t hear claims that America is evil from conservatives, do you? Yet you have Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry and who knows how many others going on record with rhetoric that lends itself very easily to an America-hating interpretation. They are not only anti-Bush, they are anti-American military and anti-American sovereignty (remember Kerry wanting to clear his national security plans through France?), for starters.
Your phrase, “we’re fighting for control of the country” is telling. A democratic republic is not controlled by one faction or another; if that happens, we are on the road to tyranny. Left and right have to work together, arriving at decisions for the common good, and left and right alike vote in each election for their champions to represent them.
Odd you should cite “greedy right-wing hands”; see today’s posting at http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/WriterofLight1342/420416.
Also, the left had its shot for 40 years, if you want to look at it that way.
Finally, please thank your paratrooper friend for all of us for his service.
posted by
WriterofLight
on November 13, 2006 at 7:06 PM
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Writer
A small footnote. Whie there now exist EAWs ( European Arrest Warrants ) with which any country can demand the extradition, without prima facie evidence of any wrongdoing, these apply solely to EU citizens.
However much they may long for it to be so, and whatever legal steps they take to make it reality, German law has no application outside Germany, ( and only then if if it is EU approved )
What they are proposing has no basis in international law whatsoever. They can of course apply to the Hague for an arrest warrant of Bush and co.
But I wouldn't give much for their chances of geting one. Even from that equally idiotic body.
posted by
ariel70
on November 13, 2006 at 12:10 PM
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Writer
There are no limits to the sheer fatuity, ignorance of international customs and law, and shee bloody cheek of the satraps of that insane latter day Holy Roman Empire, the EU.
To the list of things for which Germany should be eternally grateful to America, you could well have added American guts and forces putting an end to the genocide in the Balkans.
This after ALL the EU " leaders" including Major of Britain had sucked up to murderous Serbian and Bosnian Serbian dictators, in the most nauseating act of appeasment since the 1930s.
It made me ashamed to be British, and was a major factor in my getting the hell out of Britian, and coming to live in Spain.
posted by
ariel70
on November 13, 2006 at 11:24 AM
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problem is noone is morally superior
while Germany (not all) was persecuting Jews, we were persecuting Blacks.
OUr country's history is full of various kinds of genocidal acts -- against ingenous americans, african americans, homosexuals, etc.
it is in the human nature -- of that there can be no doubt. All it takes is labeling another culture as evil -- hmmm -- where have I heard that on Blogit?
regarding courts and prosecutions -- our country seems to want to be immune from other countries or world bodies enforcing in any manner against us -- and yet wants to prosecute foreign individuals and entities in our courst -- a bit lopsidedly.
posted by
Xeno-x
on November 13, 2006 at 11:22 AM
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Good post. Blanche is dead wrong. We can do a lot worse.
Especially with EU international courts on our tail. Why don't we have jurisdiction over that mass murderer walking around the streets of Hamburg.
posted by
LeRoyCoyote
on November 13, 2006 at 11:09 AM
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Accepted...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/pre.html
An excerpt:
Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq is the only person ever to be convicted of taking part in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet today he freely walks the streets of Hamburg, Germany.
Motassadeq was arrested in Hamburg in November 2001 and charged with 3,066 counts of accessory to murder for having wired money to the hijackers in the United States. In February 2003, he was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in German prison. But Motassadeq's conviction was overturned by a German appeals court in March 2004 because the United States offered evidence to the prosecution but not to the defense. The United States had provided the prosecutors with information based on interrogations of Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, two high-level detainees who allegedly devised the plot. But the U.S. refused to provide either the prosecution or the defense with the detainees themselves, their interrogators or full transcripts of what they said.
Motassadeq's former lawyer in the case, Gerhard Strate, said if bin al-Shibh and Mohammed were unavailable for security reasons, the prosecutors could instead provide transcripts of the interrogations or the ability to cross-examine the interrogators. The U.S. Department of Justice refused.
posted by
Katray2
on November 12, 2006 at 9:17 PM
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Don't start with the "leftists hate America" drum, Writer, it isn't true.
I"m a progressive, and I come from a family of Veterans, and as you know, I currently live with a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper. WE are not anti-American, Writer, we are anti-George Bush. The two are not synonymous, when will you and your cohorts realize this?
We're fighting for control of the country and bring the Empire back into line, into balance away from the greedy right-wing hands of the last 12 years. You have had your shot. We want ours. We can hardly do worse.
posted by
Blanche.
on November 12, 2006 at 8:59 PM
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