Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Iran vs. Poland (just like Wrestlemania...only different)
This is one of the most frustrating things to me. How is it that these illogical actions are taken, with nothing to back them up (not that I’d agree with their reasons, regardless), and no one even notices? How did we get so passive?
[insert incoherant grubling here]
morning all. a little bit less cold today near the Potomic.
and wait...what is wrestlemania?
oh, sorry, my brain is nimbly subject-hopping today, but I keep thinking about communication. I know I need to improve this, especially listening. I need to stop listening with the focus on how I want to respond. I need to pay more attention to what people are saying. I think society trains us to ignore what people are saying, and if only we’d learn to listen...well I believe that it would help, but I don’t pretend to think it would be a cure-all.
i also keep thinking about a line from ani difranco: “silence is violence in women and poor people. if more people were screaming then i could relax”
Posted by Deb on from NoVa 02/06 at 09:01 AMI do wonder what kind of a place Poland is when presidential candidates can make such statements in the European Parliament…
Posted by sk on from 02/06 at 09:40 AMGod moprning sk and Mickey…
Deb...I like that Ani quote.
I sort have been loosely following the Poland connection for a couple of years now. It makes me sad because that is the home of my ancestors and I am sure that I have relatives still there. Poland, like so many other countries, has been bribed and/threatened. This is what has happened so many times in the Security Council. It is just SOP usa foreign policy. Enough money and threats can get you anything. I am not excusing Poland but, as when a bully on the playground takes over, the little kid that gets beaten up should not be blamed.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 02/06 at 10:09 AM(not that I’d agree with their reasons, regardless),
What an opened minded person. So, how would your dictarship run? No room for anyone to disagree with you, even if she or he may be correct.
Posted by Les M on from Detroit USA 02/06 at 10:33 AMHello Expendables...it’s another frigid day in Astoria.
Okay, who brought Les to this here party? He sounds like he might be about to disagree with me on something...and you all know that is strictly prohibited.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/06 at 11:03 AMlol. Mickey, i think he’s quoting me. I feel honored!
Les, I’m opposed to war, weapons, violence. So the gov’t could have whatever reasons to justify these things I’m opposed to, and I am not going to be in agreement.
I’d be a vegan anarchist dictator where the one rule is no violence - not to the earth, not to animals (human or non). No disagreement allowed on that, sorry. ;)
Posted by Deb on from NoVa 02/06 at 11:23 AMI agree with everybody.
Posted by Keir on from the hague 02/06 at 12:32 PMPoland was at one point Europe’s largest countries, at another its most progressive, and second only to the US in actually committing a Constitution to paper. It has been subject to almost two and a half centuries of attempts to turn it into a complete basket case. Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, Britain, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, France and Britain again, and the US have all played significant parts.
One of the more recent offences was the condition, stipulated by the US, that Poland purchase 48 American F-16’s in order to join NATO. I guess it seemed fair to the Clinton Administration to force a country coming out of 50 years of Soviet-orchestrated hell to jump right into horrendous “defense” spending while schools and hospitals deteriorated.
The European Union is murdering small farmers and making wealthy businessmen wealthier.
Poland defeated the Ottoman Empire at Vienna in 1683 (I think) and as Europe’s most Catholic country (nothing to be proud of there) somehow has felt no qualms about fighting America’s crusade to liberate Iraqi oil from its people. I should say the government (now run by a set of openly fascist, openly homophobic twins --- one of whom is not-so-secretly gay) has no qualms. A slight majority of the people have been against Poland’s role in Iraq from the start.
But the Polish government, run by thieves and scumbags who would make Dick Cheney proud, has sent Polish boys to shoot Iraqi boys (to impress boy-king George), has happily allowed the CIA to torture human beings, and now is set to open up its borders to American anti-Iranian missiles --- while US borders remain closed to Poles without hard-to-get visas. Totally sad state of affairs.
Posted by Keir on from the hague 02/06 at 12:56 PMSo let me get this straight, Deb, Les is your guest today?
Keir: I had a feeling when I made today’s post that you’d have some excellent info to add. I was right. Thanks.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/06 at 01:19 PMWhen Polish politics swims out of the mist, it reminds me of William Shirer’s ‘Rise and Fall of The Business Friendly Reich’ and of Z. Brzezinski. Things apparently haven’t changed much.
When first reading Shirer, I was shocked by the departure from the pop history of an innocent Poland being trampled by swarms of panzers. The leadership of Poland was happy to stand by as Nazi aggression reached into neighboring states - they waited like rubes on their cut of the proceeds. When there were no other options for expansion, Germany turned on the Poles and crushed them in a few weeks. The government-in-exile sagely blamed the Russians, who were similarly greedy and also later betrayed by the Nazis (and at least the Russians had a Non-Aggression Pact to point at in outrage - the Poles dealt in secret).
Brzezinski represents this same royalist lineage of Poland, power-mad and inflamed by ancient hatred of the Russians (Afghan bear trap, anyone?). Watching him come out against Bush last week was a laugh fest; only the prospect of the imperial shell game in ruin could strike fear into a parasite like him.
Here’s to the assassination of the concept of political convenience. And let’s check to make sure Franco’s still dead.
FWIW, I have Polish ancestors, including a colonel/college prof who (I was told) fled wounded to these shores after one or another fight with the Russians.
Posted by Zen Prole on from Urth 02/06 at 01:28 PMGood day!
Deb it sounds like you’ve unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly, who am I to say?) stumbled upon the Expendables working theorem on the “New Utopian Imperium”.
It’s a work in progress, as soon as we Expendables rule the world we’ll have to have our ducks in a row, but the outlook at the moment would seem to indicate that we’ve got some time to iron out the little details.
In the meantime, I agree on your points of non-disagreement
More than a few ‘droppers in’ the last couple of days, eh? Posing more questions, but does anyone have a few good answers? I think we all need a few of those.
(FYI-Implementable solutions will rise to the top of the pile of suggestions for NUtI policy)And...it’s freezing again today. I imagine it’s similar in NY"City".
Deb, I share your listening impairment; it’s a tricky one.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 02/06 at 01:33 PMOFF TOPIC… Happening now at a Congressional Hearing...Bremer questioned by members of Congress. At one point Congressman Peter Welch made the point that 363 tons of cash, in unmarked bills were hauled out of the Federal Reserve, put on trucks and planes and taken to Bremer’s CPA in Iraq. Just follow the money...oops, they were unmarked bills and now no one CAN follow the money. The usa taxpayers have been duped. I keep saying that this is the biggest money laundering scheme in history. It might be a war for oil, but oil is secondary. It is a war to redistribute assets from the people to those in power. That was the plan all along. Their plan was successful.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 02/06 at 03:24 PMGood day, all. I’ve been lurking lately but not posting (uh, obviously). Couple things I wanted to drop by here. While on the subject of Iran, I read this little bit of French honesty, don’t know if you all were aware (thanks to Stephen Gowans http://gowans.blogspot.com):
-----------------------
In an interview on January 29, 2007, French president Jacques Chirac dismissed the idea that Iran would pose much of a danger, even if it had one or two nuclear weapons.“I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that’s not very dangerous.”
“Where will [Iran] drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.”
“It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately. We have means—several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.”
Chirac called back reporters the next day to retract his remarks. The New York Times attributed them to a “neurological episode” the president had suffered in 2005.
-----------------------------The second thing I want to pass along I found very amusing as I stumbled upon it a few days ago when you all were talking about a certain leftwing website for the mentally challenged. It’s probably best not to ask me how I found this out, but if you’re feeling curious, enter “THIS SHIT HAS GOT TO END” into a google search and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky”. The result speaks for itself.
Posted by Banta on from Florida 02/06 at 04:12 PMBanta, that’s a great link and reminds me of Moses Avalon’s “Confessions of a Record Producer,” which is the musician’s equivalent of Blum’s “Killing Hope.” http://www.mosesavalon.com
Writers beware, too. A friend once had a run-in with corporate publishing, and the pattern was remarkably similar.
Posted by Zen Prole on from Urth 02/06 at 05:00 PMIreland has recently been stuffed full of Polish people, I was surprised to find visiting for the first time in two years in 2005. Seems to be a nifty sort of breeding programme the EU have got to the purpose of fusing such a diverse bunch of people on this continent into one creamy homogenous docile nation. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why the Catholic alcoholics all ended up together on one island.
Posted by owen on from schmarcelona 02/06 at 06:28 PMJust for the record...ABC is now reporting what I posted here in #12 at 3:24 PM. I love it when that happens.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 02/06 at 06:37 PMMan… pardon me for focusing on politics a little more local, but I just passed some local paper on the way home with Rudy on the cover trumpeting his big announcement, and I don’t know… I’m no lesser evil (sic) type, and didn’t vote for Hillary in for the senate before… but the idea of that guy getting elected president just gives me the creeps on such a viceral level.
Don’t worry, I’ll get over it.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 02/06 at 07:01 PMThat is real news to me, Mickey - thanks for this entry! In the case of Poland, that nation definitely was part of the ‘new Europe’ Rumsfeld referred to some 4 years ago. Can’t say I look back on my two visits to Poland in the early 1980’s with pleasure - altogether the country struck me as far too Catholic, and these days, it is veering dangerously close to a theocracy, if it isn’t one already.
Hello to Deb, sk, Rosemarie, Les M, Keir, Zen Prole, Amelopsis, Banta, Owen and James - illustrious company each and every day. For me, the outstanding comment today is Keir’s (#8) on Poland.
And Rosemarie #12, I agree with you so much - again: ‘It is a war to redistribute assets from the people to those in power. That was the plan all along. Their plan was successful.’On the other hand: all comments are great.
Ciao expendables - take care.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 02/06 at 07:48 PMHello again, friends. Sorry I missed the second half of today’s discussions...but I did read along. Thanks. So great to see so many of my favorite folks here.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/06 at 09:48 PMYes that’s right folks…
Look at where this posting is from....and may i say, it’s good to be back
Posted by michael on from SCOTLAND!!!!!!!!! 02/07 at 03:43 AM
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