| Author | Message | ||
     Aesquire |
Well said. Food for thought from someone with clear perspective. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Thank you Roderick for your perspective. I too believe that relations with Cuba should be normalized but not unconditionally and not unilaterally by a rogue president. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'm a little torn also. On one hand, I hate to engage with thugs, be they individuals or governments. On the other hand, we are right. We have justice and truth on our side. So not engaging is just taking justice and truth further from people that need it. I could probably figure out how to run a dictatorial despotic government and maintain control over my people. It would be awful and evil, but it could be done. I'm not sure how I could do that with engagement of my people with non tyrannical governments. Heck, just giving them Internet access is probably enough to screw me and make it impossible to control people in the long term. All I've decided at this point is that there is no simple answer... | ||
| Hootowl |
"just giving them Internet access is probably enough" The long time prisoner Cuba just released was imprisoned for doing exactly that. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Imprisoning people for letting somebody shoulder surf their smart phone will put quite the crimp in western tourism...  Besides, cuban cigars aren't what they used to be anyway. The best cuban cigar I get these days comes from the Dominican Republic (for about $2.50 a stick! Yum!) | ||
| Bob_thompson |
I understand that after Obamas last press conference for the year later today he's heading on a 17 day vacation to Hawaii. Isn't that great! AND just maybe his route will take him over the Bermuda Triangle. YA! Let the cool aid drinkers rants begin. | ||
| Oldog |
just maybe his route will take him over the Bermuda Triangle. Sorry Wrong ocean. I get the idea.... (+2)  } | ||
| Bob_thompson |
Jim (Oldog), wrong ocean is correct but leaving from D.C. I thought he might just want to fly over more "friendly" territory like the gulf & Mexico while heading southwesterly being way more friendly then flying over our western states. | ||
| Roderick |
What I want is beyond any President and political partisanship: The security of the US. Am not going to get melodramatic and say silly things like 'The survival of the country is at stake' and nonsense. But what I am saying is that when an opportunity that will benefit the country is available, it should not matter if a wise man or a fool take the initiative. Barack Obama is shrewd, not wise, although enough Americans confused wile with wisdom and twice elected him. Obama is a politician before he is a sage. And I dare say he prefers to be a politician over a sage even though he and his legion of sycophants works hard to try to present the impression of the latter. If his political shrewdness led him to this decision and that he cares for nothing greater than on how to benefit his name, for the sake of the security of the country, I do not care. Obviously, we cannot literally take over Cuba, but the next best thing would be to have Cuba in the same ideological and political mold as Canada. Or even better: To be like Puerto Rico. China is on the fast track to be our next challenger and the Chinese learned from the mistakes of the Soviet Union. But there is a major difference between China and the Soviet Union that will steer the Chinese foreign affairs ship. The US is a moral country. By that, I mean we openly present ourselves as a democratic and capitalist people. The Soviet Union was also a moral country in that the Kremlin tried to make Marxism work in both the philosophical and practical realms. We succeeded and the Soviets failed. Marxism simply could not work outside the walls of the monastery and the nunnery. China is an amoral country. Amoral, not immoral because the word 'immoral' implies the acknowledgment of a set of moral standards. Amoral simply means no acknowledgment of any morality at all. Not necessarily evil but simply indifference to any standards. Whatever works towards a goal will be employed. The Soviets through propaganda worked hard to export Marxism as not merely a competitor to democracy and capitalism but superior to them. China cannot do the same. China, for all practical purposes, abandoned Marx a long time ago, but because China must maintain at least a pretense of a moral country, the Chinese leadership resort to wordplays and mental gymnastics like 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics', whatever that mean. Note the 'Chinese characteristics'. Unlike the 'American dream' which can be adopted by anyone from any foreign country, whatever that make up those 'Chinese characteristics' openly implies an exclusion: That unless one is Chinese, one cannot adopt these uniquely Chinese properties. China simply cannot export a 'Chinese dream' because China never formulated one, and the 'American dream' that composed of: fair play, hard work, self reliance, rule of law, and a set of undeniable rights and freedoms...All have been in constant broadcast since the creation of the US. In short, the 'American dream' with all the philosophical and ideological components are considered to be 'universal' while whatever that makes up the 'Chinese dream' is racially and ethnically constrained. We can even argue that we simply got 'first dibs' on what make up 'universal'. This is why China cannot challenge US in the philosophical and the ideological arenas. But if China cannot stand mano-a-mano against US on ideology, the way the Soviets tried during the Cold War, then how can China challenge US ? With the same tool the US is good at: Money. If China cannot export the 'Chinese dream' and the Chinese way of doing things, basically making a morally compelling argument, then China can buy partners who will do things the Chinese ways and under Chinese supervision. China may be on opposite side of the world to Cuba, but the Chinese are not Russians and right now, under most metrics that matters, China already passed Russia in terms of global influence and preference. Cuba under Chinese sphere of influence is just as great a potential as when Castro took over and made Cuba a vassal state to the Soviet Union. Republicans and Democrats should set aside their differences about Cuba and recognize the long term consequences, of whether Cuba is under US sphere of influence or under China's. The Chinese leadership know that while they cannot remove US presence and influence in Asia, unless China take over Hawaii, then at least China controlling Cuba is better than nothing and can serve as a staging ground to Central and South America. Roderick | ||
| Fb1 |
Roderick, I enjoy reading your posts; thanks for taking the time to offer up well-stated thought and opinion. That said, I respectfully take exception to a few of your points above: Am not going to get melodramatic and say silly things like 'The survival of the country is at stake' and nonsense. The survival of our Constitutional Republic is most assuredly at stake. 0bama and his string-pullers are working fervently to transform this country into something that more resembles Cuba's form of governance, and they've made incredible progress in this regard. Yes, the survival of our country - as the Founders intended and created - is at stake. That's not hyperbole, it's fact. Barack Obama is shrewd, not wise, although enough Americans confused wile with wisdom and twice elected him. Good grief, he STOLE his reelection. The powers that be made sure in '08 that he had little in the way of competition (Palin was his biggest threat politically, and his media minions gang-raped her, repeatedly, to make sure the R's got no traction). In '12, however, he was EXTREMELY vulnerable politically, and even with the weaponization of the DOJ and IRS, and even owning the mainstream media, he BARELY "won" reelection, by a mere 400,000 votes spread across four swing states. You make it sound like you blame "us" for his reelection, like "we" were fooled, again, by him. He STOLE the election, amigo. In fact, who was one of the IRS' biggest targets, perhaps their PRIMARY target, in the run-up to the '12 election? True the Vote. I accept ZERO blame for 0bama's reelection. Best, Ferris | ||
| Court |
I tend to agree. The rules of the game are changing. IT's becoming much easier for the wealthy and properly connected to navigate their way into smooth waters. Take a look at the various "passes" Hollywood gets and the way wealthy celebs and athletes laugh and walk away from the law. If you or I had done about any of the things that A-Rod, Lindsey Lohan or Justin Beiber had . . we'd be in jaiil. They crash a Porsche while drunk and the officers drive them home. The same can be said at the highest federal levels. If you are a person of color you are beyond the reach of this DOJ and IRS. Interesting today that the IRS, blaming the recent budget cuts, tells us that refunds are going to be quite slow coming this year. Imagine . . for a moment . . . that you did what Lois Lerner did at your place of employment. Your ass would be out the door in less than 8 minutes. Try knocking your wife out in the elevator and then being cleared to resume your 3,000,000 per month contract. Times have changed. . . . money and affiliation now make a huge difference. | ||
| Fb1 |
...he BARELY "won" reelection, by a mere 400,000 votes spread across four swing states. It's been a while since I crunched the numbers; it's even worse than I remembered. 0bama "won" by 333,908 more votes in four key swing states. The final electoral college count gave 0bama a 332 to 206 margin over Romney. 270 electoral college votes are needed to win the Presidency. - Romney lost New Hampshire’s 4 electoral college votes by a margin of 40,659 (0bama "won" the state with 52.2% of the vote). - Romney lost Florida’s 29 electoral college votes by a margin of 73,858 (0bama "won" the state with 50.0% of the vote). - Romney lost Ohio’s 18 electoral college votes by a margin of 103,481 (0bama "won" the state with 50.1% of the vote). - Romney lost Virginia’s 13 electoral college votes by a margin of 115,910 (0bama "won" the state with 50.8% of the vote). Add the 64 electoral college votes from this switch of 333,908 votes in these four key states to Romney’s 206, remove them from Obama’s 332, and Romney defeats Obama 270 to 268. Put another way: Out of 121,745,725 votes cast in the election, 0bama "won" the electoral college vote by less than 0.3%. Not even a third of 1%. Was his "win" because of vote fraud? Based on what we know about 0bama, and ESPECIALLY what we know about the weaponization of the DOJ and IRS during his pResidency, only a blind man or a fool could believe otherwise. I accept ZERO blame for 0bama's reelection. FB | ||
| Court |
Well . . . for the time being . . .we are stuck with the SOB. Fortunately . . . . as of today . . . we have 4 fewer terrorists in Gitmo since he, on his way out of town, sent them home to be with their little terror families. In other good news . . . North Korea has stepped up and offered to help us sort out the cyber-terrorism thing. It'll be nice to have some North Korean brainpower sorting out how an American company was bitch slapped and extorted by a country that we took off the list to terrorist nations. I suspect . . . if you had told someone 25 years ago that North Korean and Cuba would be playing the American executive branch like a cheap fiddle they'd have called you crazy. Now . . . like some BSDM dude . . . this guy seems to enjoy it. I feel a bit safer with him thousands of miles away playing golf. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
It's going to get worse before it gets better. | ||
| Aesquire |
"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone, they fenced paradise, and put up a free speech zone." | ||
| Sifo |
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| Court |
Round of applause for those crazy son's of bitches in The White House.
This is gonna get good . . you just KNOOOOOOW it is. | ||
| Court |
I'd love to see their system come back up and them saying "nuke plant? . . what nuke plant?" I'm not sure this little tubby toy knows who he is ••••••• with. (Message edited by court on December 22, 2014) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I'm doubtful the outages are being caused by us. Seems ballsy, aggressive and straight forward, not the descriptors used to characterize US foreign policy under Obama. | ||
| Court |
I agree. He hasn't the balls to pull it off. Even the Bin Laden thing had some reports that it was Hillary who finally explained to him that he needed to "shit or get off the pot" when it came time to green light the operation. We'll see. It appears to be getting worse by the hour. Perhaps it's a look connection or they are behind on their bill. I'm outta here till next year . . . .hopefully they'll get it straightened out. :-) | ||
| Reepicheep |
I bet it was us. Obama is happy to lob stones from a distance to act tough. And we should. When nation states attack a private corporation, the private corporation lacks the legal rights to retaliate in any way (as they probably should). So from a CISO perspective, it's like being told to fight a naval war, but you can only defend yourself, you can't mount any offensive actions. Heck, you can't even shoot the planes strafing your battleship, because they are actually civilian planes that have been commandeered by the attackers. Can you imagine trying to fight that kind of war? So we need the thread of massive and devastating repercussions for cross border criminal behavior. Hopefully by the sovereign countries legal system under a well ordered rule of law, but if they aren't doing the job, that's why military forces exist. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/fantasyland-u sa/?singlepage=true | ||
| Reindog |
 | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
We have the capability Cyber Command investment ensures hackers targeting U.S. face retribution http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/22/us -cyber-command-investment-ensures-hackers-target/? page=all} (Message edited by ferris von bueller on December 24, 2014) | ||
| Bob_thompson |
"We have the capability" I have to agree RJ; I have thought that with all our best cyber operatives & technology we must have the capability but; do we have anyone in command who has the desire or the balls to push the button? At this moment it appears not. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Cyber warfare is a harder genie to return to the bottle than nuclear weapons. Once we embark on that journey, it'll be hard to turn back. Destroy the financial and infrastructure, and the fragile entity we know as civilization will descend into the basest of human behavior. | ||
| Reindog |
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| Reepicheep |
If it was North Korea, and I now assume it was once there were 911 type threats against theaters showing the movie that were not denounced by NK, I think they were a fool to waste a cyber weapon (which are generally one use weapons as once you deploy them, they get analyzed and cease to be effective). They wasted an expensive and powerful weapon on vanity. We would be equally foolish to use up an expensive weapon in response. Now if it was Russia, and this was an opening of a next front in a new cold war (my second guess after NK), then retaliation might be good, as we can beat them this time like we beat them last time, by forcing them into a race they can't afford to be running in. | ||
| Alfau |
Americans live in a fairy-tale, Santa Clause! lol. North Koreans, Muslims, Chinese and everyone else , including Russians, aren't so stupid. Your bankrupt. Factually,morally and economically! What are you going to exploit them with next? Empty threats! (Message edited by alfau on December 25, 2014) | ||
| Alfau |
What has Cuba got that you blood suckers want? (Message edited by alfau on December 25, 2014) |
