Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 09, 2011

Let the harvest begin!

Is Trudeau getting overconfident?

By spring, Iran will have been invaded on false pretences, the OWC protests will be called treason in a time of war, the Nobel Peace Prizident will (in the words of some moron or other on this page a few days ago) “execute traitors” by drone-murdering protestors and dissidents, the only difference between CNN (which is already drum-beating an attack on Iran) and Faux News is which one’s viewsreaders wear flag lapel pins, and Americans will be painfully surprised (once again) to discover that nobody likes them.

So while you’re at it, Bill, who’s gonna win the Super Bowl?

How should I know? I have no idea of your American sports.

Is someone raffling the Superbowl?

>> Americans will be painfully surprised (once again) to discover that nobody likes them.

What? Nobody likes us? But we’re liberators!

“Bill the Butcher” has no idea about much of anything, sports or otherwise.

Gt will back any candidate who insists on making Americans fund apartheid

Even if I were a lefty, I would not want to be a Democrat campaign manager. With OWS forcing the bank bailouts to the front burner, how in the hell would I develop a strategy for my candidate to run against a signature policy of the Democratic leadership? (Assuming my boss is a liberal Democrat and not a “blue dog.”)

We’ll never have to step one foot into Iran. When and if a credible threat of a nuke is found, Isreal will take care of it by air strike, just as they have done before. They cannot afford to leave it upto us.

that is because Crosby plays for the penguins and Nash plays for the bluejackets

The sad part is, the Butcher looks like he needs his meds checked while the Parrot just needs to quit watching Fox News. Neither of them have any contact with reality, though.

Methinks she sees an American spring like the Arab spring. Too bad they didn’t get the Persian spring they all wanted.

dept. of separated at birth: the Pretzledent and the Prizident. NPR starting the Iran/dogs of war drums this morning.

Trudeau is taking a sly little shot at the professional political operatives that infest every campaign by having Joanie see the protesters as a viable voting bloc, which they most definitely are not.

The protesters calling themselves the “99%” is just plain silly. There is not one single thought, belief, idea, or “ism” that has ever had, or ever will have, the support of 99% of any group.

Who need two aging hippies or the Superbowl? We are still in comas over September’s MLB. Bet the OWS quit Beantown’s streets before Washington’s. People are like that, ask Napoleon or Hitler.

Go Patriots. The football team too.

Whoops, gotta go. Time to watch Democracy Now.

Pokerfaced, I bet you’d love China. No pesky EPA, NLRB or ObamaCare to deal with. People work untold hours at slave wages, because there are no unions. Cancer is epidemic there, due to no regs on pollution. Why don’t you move there, if all these modern, so called “job killing” appurtenances are so reprehensible to you?:I think the “job killers” most of us care about are the fat cats at the top who rigged this economic crash, who’ve profited just fine from it, and who bought our government out, thanks to people like you.

The Ravens. I always go with the team with a solid defense. I would pick the Steelers but they’re too banged up right now.

Well we now have an answer to yesterdays comment about why the OWS Boston folks were outside of Alex’s Back Bay flat instead of where they usually gathered.

You forgot Gary Johnson. The Repugs aren’t going to be able to ignore him much longer.

AK Henderson is right about Obama going along with McCain to endorse Bush-Paulson’s Tarp.BHO’s support for the banks, and his professing admiration for Summers, Geithner, and Jamie Dimon, gave me pause but I decided to vote for him (rather than Ron Paul) because I figured he was more likely than McCain to disengage us from Iraq and to tackle medicare.I knew BHO would have to compromise on both issues. He’s gotten us out of Iraq while building up our force in Afghanistan (despite having taken out bin Laden). And he passed Obamacare by cutting a deal with the parasitical insurers.He’s also done some good things for education; in fact, he’s the only leader or would-be leader who sees that America’s potential for recovery lies in its education policy. (How can you create jobs for untrained workers?)But his failure to take on the banks is enough, probably, to sink his presidency. “Bankers are some of the smartest people I know,” he said early in 2009. And although Wall Street is contributing less to his campaign (so far), that may change. The Washington Post just reported that tjhe Wall Street banks have made more money during BHO’s two-and-a-half years than they did during all eight years of Bush’s administration!And now BHO is pressuring the state attorney generals to drop their suits against the banks for writing $700 billion rotten loans. BHO wants the banks to be given immunity in return for modify a mere $25 billion of home foreclosures.Talk about buying votes by paying off the banks with the taxpayers’ money!

We could become one of those one-party countries.

Although they raise some good points about corporate greed, last weekend as I was walking down Newberry street their demonstration was rather loud and got me thinking about WWII films showing how German extremism had gotten out of control. Good I guess that they don’t have a leader.

Go 49’rs

This is the third time I’ve raised this issue here: What do we do if Communist China invades another country, an ally of ours, such as Taiwan? Do we go to Beijing, hat in hand, and ask to borrow $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in order to pay for another one of our wars? A FOURTH war since the Bush II administration took office? Refresher: Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan redux, Libya (now over, thank God, leaving two still active). So far I’ve gotten no responses.

Does anybody else on this website know anything about the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization)? It seems to me to be a threat aborning. It is supposed to be an anti-terrorist league of nations including Russia and China (and a host of smaller states in the region). But it carries out military operations that seem to me to have little to do with anti-terrorist activities and a lot to do with intimidating the West.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert my belief: It was the Ronald Reagan revolution that got us into economic trouble. The revolution consisted in living beyond our means — at all levels: The level of the individual, the family, the business, the State, and the national / federal. The neocon-inspired wars in Iraq and Afghanistan we put on the national credit card. We can never win these wars, due to asymmetric warfare.

Doing everything on borrowed money, including borrowing more money (again at all levels) to cover the borrowed money led to our current financial / economic prostration. Obama has proven himself to be nearly useless as a putative FDR who would lead us out of this mess, made worse by the Bushes. Congress is owned by the 1% due to their campaign contributions coupled with their lobbyists. And the Supreme Court is rigged as evidenced, for example, by overriding the vote of the POTUS and putting Bush II in office. So here we are. Sitting ducks. It seems to me that only people like Elizabeth Warren have a correct view of the situation. But there are far too few people like her to accomplish much. There, I’ve said it. Let the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” from the legions of conservatives and neocons fly.

DT, agreed. We are more alike than disalike, I totally agree with your take on Reagan, and Bush II. And if you remember, I was one of those who lobbied for you to come back when you went away.

The question of US wars and debt to China etc . . .Like most geopolitical questions, it’s a pile of jack straws. Every move has intended or unintended consequences. Every player has internal and external considerations.The Taiwan issue from the Chinese perspective: China wants Taiwan back. But if they invade, they force the US 7th fleet to intercede. War with the US.Would China loan money to the US to fight against them? Of course not. But China has a trillion+ in Treasury bonds that it wants paid back. And China has 1.3 billion people that need jobs and a continuously rising GDP, or they’re looking at a level of revolt that will make the Taiping Rebellion look like a picnic.My guess is that there is a quiet little trilateral council in operation. Reps from China, Taiwan, with the US. Objective: Integrate Taiwan economy with mainland. Work carefully to avoid nationalistic uproar. Continuous military liaison to avoid any sparks. Reduce US-China trade deficit and maintain economic growth. Try to maintain regional stability until economic/demographic/environmental balance achieved. The 20th century was very instructive. Full of “Here’s what NOT to do” lessons.

Looking back on the last few years, I seem to have gone from an Obamaniac to an Obamanoid. Sorry. Can’t help it. I feel betrayed big time. Doesn’t mean I know what to do or agree with the anybody-but-Obama reich-wing-iacs.

I am optimistic about people due to my Christian faith. I believe in God. I believe that people are imperfect, but still precious. But I am pessimistic about politicians, acting as individuals or acting within groups. THE SECOND COMING by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepwere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

ok, gladlythecrosseyedbear is a troll so I have flagged him (accusations of apartheid make my trigger finger very itchy); now, the big question is, should I also flag billthebutcher? and if not, why not? don’t know – he doesn’t seem any better than gtceb.

If I were an American, in the next presidential election I would vote for Obama (for the second time). My reasoning is simple (I hope not simplistic): Whoever he runs against would almost certainly be worse for the country than he would. When there’s no “best” to choose, don’t you choose the “least bad”?

@dtpi; Flagging takes off the edge a bit, relaxes the tension.

You see dead people, too?

Wasn’t Mae West who said “when given the choice between two evils, I’ll take the one I haven’t had yet”?

One evil, came to the party, and trashed the place, burnt down the house, and took a dump on the lawn. The other evil came in to rebuild, but the first evil would only say NO, and blame the other evil for not making things better, quicker.

I want to point out, before the GoComics switches to the next day’s strip, that I asked the question: What if China invaded Taiwan, would we ask to borrow money from China in order to fight China? I got a number of answers, all of them saying, in effect, that it wouldn’t / couldn’t happen because of one contingency or another. One said the existence of a nuclear North Korea’s would prevent it. Another said the existence of the U.S. 7th fleet would prevent it. Another said the existence of a trillion $$ debt that WE owe to China would prevent it. But not a single responder answered the question, which was WHAT IF IT DID happen? My response to three of these non-answers is this: • A nuclear N. Korea is so dependent on China that it would probably applaud the invasion, rather than prevent it. • The President would not allow U.S. 7th fleet to fight China for a number of reasons (we’re too tied up in Iraq-Iran, for one) any more than that we would intervene with boots on the ground in Libya (China being many many times more fearsome than Libya). • The trillion dollar debt WE owe to China doesn’t compare with the value in multiple trillions of dollars Taiwan represents to China. (China would waive the debt for possession of the economic powerhouse that Taiwan represents.) All right, “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, let fly!

and he instructed us to vote for Bama, alas.

The main reason China won’t invade anywhere is that it’s bad for business. At the end of the day, it isn’t about empire building, it’s about economics. They can protect their interests without invading anywhere. IN the case of the “old empires” that all happened for profit. I don’t think it would work like that in the modern world.And from Australia:They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.