Romney not a total hero
You had a lot of wonderful things to say about Romney. I respect him even though I disagree with his politics, lucrative NRA relationship, in the background way of criticizing Trump and asking to be his Secretary of State. ( Where Trump made him look like a kid begging for a KFC job) He wants to write his book that only anti-Trump people will read and retire into a comfortable life. That’s fine but he is no hero. A hero would put his safety 2nd and his country first, campaign against Trump around election time. He thinks troops should put the country above their life so why shouldn’t he? He owes the country for his poor judgment supporting Trump in 2016 and years of power. In my view he is going out like a coward, would he be leaving if his party wasn’t a shit show? Probably not.
The Privatization of Government Is an Absolute Good -- F*** the Unions!
If you could watch the following clip of a the Morning Joe episode that aired a day after the 2nd Republican debate and read my questions I'd appreciate it. The clip features Chris Christie and his high regard for American Teachers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJIbcmNdsfs Who on the Morning Joe crew thought that the comment Chris Christie made about Joe Biden sleeping with a member of the teacher's union was disgusting? Do they want to support the teachers of our Nation for the difficult job they are tasked to do, or do they want to undermine them, like all the parents of snotty, bratty kids who give them grief for having real civic values?. The double talk coming out of Morning Joe is just as disgusting as the Republican Party's current message..
I was unable to log into your discussion with Margaret Sullivan
Hello, I am a paid "prime" subscriber. I signed up for the talk with Steve Schmidt and Margaret Sullivan. I received no information on how to log into the podcast and was very disappointed. Although I do not use Facebook I would have hoped to have been provided a link to yesterday evening's discussion.
could you use a thinker like me in your operation?
Hello, I wrote the following essay this morning in about a half an hour. I am a full-time realtor and I write for fun and want to get it out there but don't want to start a youtube channel and get a team together. I wonder what you think of the following: People are suffering and dying in Israel and Palestine. It's easy to merely vilify the group that carried out the attack. But it's never so simple. Many are comparing the recent Hamas attacks on Israel to 9/11. This comparison could not be more apt on many levels. The intercept posted an article making this comparison. The most salient point was that the 2 nations, the US and Israel, through the ultra-violent attacks, experienced the ultra-violence they mete out. This is not to say Americans and Israeli citizens deserve this. The opposite is true. The citizens are, by and large, innocent. The leaders make Faustian Bargains and the unassuming humans that live in those countries bear the suffering and mayhem that ensues. This is the epitome of blowback. US support and later abandonment of the Northern Alliance and Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the enemies of our enemy, was the seed of 9/11. Our cold war calculus, seemingly sensible at the time, caused so much devastation, destruction, loss of life, and destabilization across the globe. Similarly in Israel, the Israeli government supported the precursors to Hamas and later Hamas itself. They saw Hamas as a counter-balance to Fatah and pitted these groups against each other. They financed Hamas. Until Hamas came for Israel in the way al qaeda came for the US. The key ingredients in both scenarios appear to me to be the following: careless disregard and dehumanization of inhabitants of a region cynical manipulation of a zealous and radicalized group of religious devotees to fight one's battles against one's enemy not heeding the warning signs and doubling down on repression and avoidance of inevitable blowback. then blaming and demonizing the Frankenstein's monster of the cynical nation's own making when the inevitable nightmare ensues rinse and repeat The Middle East, the world powers and the rest of the world can't keep doing this and expecting different outcomes. We like to view ourselves as modern and so civilized, but it's a lie. The apple is rotten at it's core. The facade of humanity, of civility is punctured every time a fanatical group delivers unspeakable horrors on nations that spread violence and misery across the globe. Our national government speaks the Golden Rule but enforces Hammurabi's Code. And ours isn't the only nation that does so. And we don't do so in order to intentionally spread horror and death. We do so and have done so with often good intentions. Trying to prevent nuclear war, the spread of Soviet Communism, the spread of religious fanatical terrorism, drug cartels. But it hasn't worked. On the contrary, we have created the very monsters we blame and hunt and demonize. Our domination of the world has been a disaster. And that's with a popularly elected(ish) government. Imagine how much worse a Saudi hegemony would be, or the nightmare of Ruso/Sino/Iran axis running the planet? It would be far worse and far more deadly and far more cynical. So we have to do so much better. There is no savior coming. And if we are ever going to prevent the next 9/11, we must realize that in every solution lies the seed of the next catastrophe. Every marginalized group yearns for freedom. And there will always be a group waiting to radicalize them and to speak for them and to welcome a descent into tribal war. It's in our dna. But so is love and respect. So is generosity. So is enfranchisement. We must give every human and every group the right to and the means of self-determination. Radicalization is the inevitable result of these needs going unmet. Every time. The only way to curb radicalization is to render it unnecessary. this was followed by a link to a 2018 Medhi Hassan video detailing the links between the Israeli government and Hamas Thanks for your time. I'm a big fan of yours since the old Bill Maher days and really enjoy your youtube channel.
Freedom requires Responsibility and Obligation
In your episode entitled "How much blame do Donald Trump & Matt Gaetz deserve for breaking GOP? " you said the following: "Freedom is a nonsense word, without the concepts of responsibility and obligation attached to it." This reminded me of a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility" Have you ever heard this quote? If not, this short video might be of interest to you: Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc