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August 11, 2006
Joe Lieberman is insane
(Posted by John.)
There's no other way to put it: Joe Lieberman has lost whatever tenuous grasp on reality he once had.
“I’m worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don’t appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us — more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous [!!!] than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War,” Mr. Lieberman said.
Two theories there: That al Qaeda is at least as evil as the Nazis, and that it is probably more dangerous than Soviet Communism. Is there anything - anything at all - that you could say to justify these statments?
First off, the idea of making an "evil metric" reminds me of the Jon Stewart line - "What we need is an evil tie-breaker! I propose each contestant be given a commercial deli slicer. And a basket of puppies!" Even if we take the statement at face value, I think you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that some guys in caves are a worse evil than the criminal organization (as the Nuremberg tribunals described the Nazi Party) that systematically razed vast swaths of Europe, and waged a kind of warfare that would have made Genghis Khan blanch.
But it's the Soviet remark that is truly bizarre. The Soviet Union, for those who (like Sen. Lieberman) have forgotten, kept tens of thousands of nuclear warheads ready to utterly destroy America, Western Europe, and their allies for decades. Bin Laden wishes he had one percent of one percent of the Soviet Union's power.
Call it the Moment Fetish: Lieberman and his fellow travellers desperately, feverishly want to believe that they live in the most important era in human history. This makes them spew the most ridiculous crap imaginable, just to feel better.
Seriously, is it just a baby boomer thing? Do guys like Lieberman just wake up every morning wishing they'd amounted to half of what their parents' generation did? (Lieberman was born in 1942, so I guess he doesn't quite count, but he's still "young" enough to carry this baggage.)
Al Qaeda and terrorism more broadly are serious threats, no doubt about it. But to compare them to the world-ending terror of the Cold War is grossly stupid. On the best day bin Laden will ever have (Sept. 11, 2001, in case you're wondering) he was still nowhere near as powerful as the Soviets. Nevertheless, recent events have shown that bin Laden and his compatriots can still feed off of the fear of an attack - fear that Liberman is now deliberately inflaming for his own small ends. This is worse than petty, it's dangerous. All it does is give aid and comfort to the very people Joe claims to want to defeat.
August 11, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
I've heard this a lot recently, at a lot of parties (great way to end an evening lemme tell you).
People think it's not just some terrorists attacking, but that our civilization is faced with a threat to its existence from an invasion by barbarian monster animal evil.
Posted by: Aaron Weber | Aug 11, 2006 6:55:34 PM
It's extremely puzzling to me that our anti-terror policies aren't centered -- like, massively, overwhelmingly focused -- on the one thing that really could fuck America up: a nuclear bomb in a major American city. Even apart from the loss of life, it's hard to imagine what the American political scene would look like after a nuclear strike. Whatever you imagine, it isn't pretty. It still wouldn't be the assured destruction we faced during the Cold War, but it would be very, very bad. Compared to that, all these bombs & planes & whatnot seem pretty minor. Somewhere around 40,000 people die every year in car accidents.
Posted by: Christopher M | Aug 11, 2006 7:25:59 PM
"That al Qaeda is at least as evil as the Nazis,"
Name one thing the NAZIs would do(evil wise) that al Qaeda would consider 'just too darn evil'.
"and that it is probably more dangerous than Soviet Communism."
The Soviets feared mutually assured destruction, islamic fascists don't.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Aug 11, 2006 7:37:18 PM
Sorry, but as an unambiguous boomer (born during the first Eisenhower administration) I recall very well not knowing from day to day if the world as I know it would suffer nuclear incineration or not. Compared to this, the level of existential threat we face from terrorism almost seems trifling.
Now, I can understand that those folks who benefited from the fear of nuclear annihilation ("cold warriors" we used to call them) would like to find an equal threat. Arms contractors as well as conservative politicians fall in this category (which makes guys like Cheney a double-whammy). We're spending over half a trillion dollars on the Iraq war -- does anyone think about just where that money goes?
I'm really ashamed of my generation, which should recall enough of what it was like to still be dancing in the streets after the USSR stood down its missiles. We lived with so much worse than what we face now (though Bush's foreign policy struggles hard to increase the level of threat we face -- perhaps, I sometimes wonder, intentionally). Terrorism is quite real, and actually has been a threat for over a generation now. We've been fighting it, quietly, all along, but occasionally terrorists are going to get lucky, and there are certainly some things we should be doing better to minimize the chance of that happening. But 10,000 weapons that make Hiroshima look feeble should put things in perspective, if we had our wits about us.
Notwithstanding, Lieberman may be showing the early signs of dementia.
Posted by: modus potus | Aug 11, 2006 7:51:45 PM
"The Soviets feared mutually assured destruction, islamic fascists don't."
Everyone feared Mad, including people in the mideast. 2 countries unrelated to their cause, their religion, or their culture would have ended it for them just as quick.
Islamic extremists arent collectively that brave or unstoppable. They do have those among them that are, but as a group they arent very efficient at keeping them or promoting them; they have this nasty habit of blowing themselves up. The leadership either runs and hides, or blows itself up when confronted.
If you take them at their stated word (laughable as that is) their stated goal is a worldwide islamic khalifate. This would not be possible if the world was reduced to an atomic rubble pile with no survivors.
Even though most are 2 PC to admit it, this truly is a conflict of culture. Theirs is anathema to ours, and both are mutually exclusive, until someone blinks. Fortunately they dont have the power to do anything but attack individual buildings, or at the worst individual cities, whereas we can level their countries. ..the whole current problem is overblown.
Posted by: david b | Aug 11, 2006 8:06:51 PM
Islamic fundamentalists fear MAD more than Mao did. At least, he's the only guy I've ever heard of who subsidized a population boom in his country in the hopes that some of his people might be alive after a limited nuclear exchange.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Aug 11, 2006 8:44:34 PM
Seriously, is it just a baby boomer thing? Do guys like Lieberman just wake up every morning wishing they'd amounted to half of what their parents' generation did?
Oh, SNAP! I'm going to be smiling about that line all night. Thank you.
Posted by: Toast | Aug 11, 2006 9:07:21 PM
Call it the Moment Fetish: Lieberman and his fellow travellers desperately, feverishly want to believe that they live in the most important era in human history.
And that they are the ones who have bravely and selflessly put themselves between the forces of evil and the rest of us. It's more of a Hero Complex than anything else.
Posted by: Stephen | Aug 11, 2006 10:37:35 PM
Three words to explain how much Americans forget their on history when they say that nuclear destruction wasn't possible: Cuban Missile Crisis. Look it up, then tell me how there was no danger of the world really ending.
As for the quote- it just shows he is trying to appeal to a certain section of the hysterical American public that sees everything in such hyper fearful ways and has zero understanding of history.
My friend, a conservative guy, but also a history buff talked once to me about this. He doesn't understand how anyone, for example, thought we would go into Iraq and not see the casualities we are seeing. Indeed, he points out that (I believe) it was WWII in which there was 20,000 dead in one day of the war. Lieberman is playing on the low information voters- not you here or me. He's playing for the crowd that sees wars like video games or like the Romans- entertainment to be seen right before watching Big Brother 7.
Nothing can justify what Lieberman says, because he isn't worried about reaching us. He's taking his plays out of the Rove school of politics, which is to say another version of Orwellian politics.
Posted by: akaison | Aug 11, 2006 11:59:28 PM
PS
To all those people here who are saying "well they are as bad." You are caught up in hysteria. The worst Al Qaida can do doesn't come near to what with a push of button the Soviets could have done (again the Cuban Missile Crisis just to name one example) or what the Nazis actually did. The key difference between the parties is that one is an actuality- whereas your view of al qaida is inside your head. Can't you tell the difference anymore between reality and something that's your own belief? Moreover, can't you understand that you aren't dealing with a state actor which means that their capacity for destruction while impressive (and mostly luck when you think of all the steps that had to happen in order to achieve 9/11) it in no way is comparable to either what the Nazis did (start an actual not theorectial war world) or the soviets did. The best that Al Qaida could hope for is to get a WMD from somewhere and try to deliver that. But, then that of course takes you crazies to place that eventually proves us liberals and our crazy ideas for how to contain terrorists right.
Posted by: akaison | Aug 12, 2006 12:07:42 AM
That al Qaeda is at least as evil as the Nazis, and that it is probably more dangerous than Soviet Communism. Is there anything - anything at all - that you could say to justify these statments?
Anything? Here's something:: The Soviet Union never carried out an attack on American soil. Yes, the Soviet Union killed more people worldwide, but in that sense, it was less dangerous (in retrospect) to Americans than a group that has already carried out one huge attack here.
Posted by: Anon | Aug 12, 2006 12:32:06 AM
See, that's not an especially good way to measure dangerousness, Anon. By that reckoning, OJ Simpson is more dangerous than Soviet Communism.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Aug 12, 2006 12:46:08 AM
"Seriously, is it just a baby boomer thing? Do guys like Lieberman just wake up every morning wishing they'd amounted to half of what their parents' generation did?"
This dipshit is pretty decent on energy issues, so he is on my blogroll, but I can cite multiple posts that show he is really quite serious about this. He hates, what a billion people world-wide, including names many of the rest of you would admire and wish were President, simply for the accident of being born in a specific time-period. If John were attacking Jews or gays or Arabs with such vicious vehemence, he would not be allowed out in public. But this silly and despicable prejudice strikes many on this blog as funny.
I repeat. He is quite serious. I am not about to tell Ezra what sick fucks can post on his blog, but it does not reflect well on him to support such a bigot.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 12, 2006 1:33:01 AM
I could go to his site and quote the multiple posts attacking baby-boomers, but it is like visiting Aryan Nations or Nazi sites. I don't feel like wallowing in filth.
And if John were to try to defend himself by citing support for Al Gore or other specific figures, well, obviously that is like saying:"All Jews are filthy scum, but this should not be interpreted as an attack on Charles Krauthammer. He is ok"
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 12, 2006 1:43:57 AM
Wow Akaison.. well said.
Posted by: david b | Aug 12, 2006 4:12:03 AM
"Seriously, is it just a baby boomer thing? Do guys like Lieberman just wake up every morning wishing they'd amounted to half of what their parents' generation did?"
I am shocked, but not surprised the commenters let this pass. "Is this a Jew thing?" and the post wouldn't have lasted five minutes. I guess John is saying all boomers are psycho-hawks because of this sense of inferiority. This is not how I remember the 60s. Like Mel Gibson's:"Jews started all the wars." the internal logic of a bigot is difficult for normal people to follow.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 12, 2006 5:10:37 AM
Akaison makes a good point that I wish Dems would exploit to the hilt. What would have happened if George W Bush had faced the Missiles of October?
Posted by: Some Dude | Aug 12, 2006 8:16:33 AM
you need to chill bob
its hard to be bigoted against your own parents or grandparents
Posted by: Sandals | Aug 12, 2006 8:44:47 AM
The advantage Lieberman has over the rest of you is he actually recognizes evil. Time after time the well funded terror organizations that have declared a religious war against the western democracies have demonstrated their evil. The liberal left of this country and Europe still believe they somehow negotiate with them into a peace. You simply have not been listening to what they are telling you and Lieberman has.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Aug 12, 2006 9:28:55 AM
Dymaxion consistently and repeatedly attacks an entire generation. It is a theme of his.
"The election of political parties like Thatcher and Mulroney's Tories, and the Reagan Republicans, is probably the greatest act of intergenerational and class warfare ever conducted, and it was only possible because one side - the generation who were either yet to be enfranchised, or about to be born - were totally disarmed. It was, in effect, an economic My Lai, with the baby boomer generation playing the role of an enthusiastic Lt. William Calley." ...May 2006
Just like all "Jews" wouldn't care to be blamed for Sharon or Olmert, I don't like being blamed for Reagan & his policies. Besides being a grotesque misunderstanding and mistatement of the actual history, I suspect with the major purpose of attacking an entire generation. Since roughly 1/2 of boomers were not eligible to vote in 1980, and very few in a position to determine policy, to blame boomers for those Reagan policies is so irrational as to invite ridicule.
I wouldn't care to speculate on why John is an irrrational bigot, but he does seem to hate an entire generation, with any attempt to distinguish "good" boomers from "bad" a reluctant afterthought. Perhaps he doesn't have the decent relationship with his family you assume.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 12, 2006 9:34:49 AM
"Time after time the well funded terror organizations that have declared a religious war against the western democracies have demonstrated their evil."
And people like Timothy McVeigh have demonstrated their evil. Should we start bombing NRA conventions?
Posted by: Kylroy | Aug 12, 2006 9:55:29 AM
Bob, I think you're coming across as more than slightly unhinged. There are many, many obvious differences between actual bigotry (such as antisemitism) and the "bigotry" you seem to be trying to invent here (bigotry against a generation). For starters, real and concrete prejudice against ethnic groups actually has a long and bloody history behind it, while prejudice against someone because they were alive around Woodstock simply doesn't. And while different age groups such as children and the elderly have been mistreated and abused throughout history, they've been mistreated and abused because of belonging to that age group - that is, because they were children or because they were elderly - not because they include Vietnam protest rallies in their pool of common cultural events.
Frankly, I think it's pretty damn tactless to go off on a series of rants like this, explicitly comparing antisemitism - the history of which includes one of the most notorious genocides in history - to a blogger who mocks Baby Boomers for being self-righteous.
Posted by: Christmas | Aug 12, 2006 10:13:13 AM
"...to a blogger who mocks Baby Boomers for being self-righteous"
Oh. Forgot where I was. Well, John can tell Max Sawicky and Digby about boomers being hawkish due to their generational inferiority. This apparently is a crowd sympathetic to John's bigotry;after all the millenials defined a whole rock sub-genre by whining at 90 decibels.
We stopped our bloody war dudes, or at least moved it to the downward curve in not far from its third year. Course it was so much easier for boomers cause we had the draft and the war was so much bigger and it never dropped below 50 percent national popularity. All the advantages.
Whine really hard, millenials, and you will also get your boomer-stolen pony.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Aug 12, 2006 11:36:07 AM
http://republicans06.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Chip Peterson | Aug 12, 2006 12:00:05 PM
Bob, at this point I have no idea what you're talking about. Who, by the way, are "millenials"? Is that supposed to be another generation? Don't your various complaints about "whining" make you an "irrational bigot," too?
Posted by: Christmas | Aug 12, 2006 12:08:59 PM
