It takes a special person...

[notes1]

according to REUTERS, French government leaders, including socialist prime minister and French president, were jeered and chants of 'resign' were yelled, when they appeared at a memorial for victims of Nice attack. the article states citizens have significant less confidence that the government can protect them and fight terrorism.

the idea that fear does not exist is foolish, that it is not affecting consumer spending, which affects a country's economy and tourism.

could it be those same feelings of fear, uncertainty are happening here? could it affect the election?

[DaBurglar]

Hi guys!!!   Hope everyone is doing ok and not allowing these events to ruin their day....We are all over the map, this forum is a lousy medium for conducting such complex and wideranging "debates", hence my criticism of certain poster's ability is not entirely warranted.Regarding Vietnam.....can we at least start with agreeing that the two situations POLITICAL backdrops are entirely different?   The Cold War (which was a outcropping of WWII)  is significantly different than today's current situation, it really is.Vietnam was the fault (if you really want to call it that)  of Eisenhower, but I am not saying it WAS Eisenhower's "FAULT" as all of you are attempting to say.   The French were kicked out of Vietnam in 1954 (and rightfully so) because the french arrogantly refused to give up their "COLONIES" when we (US) restored them by retaking their country from the Nazis.  The french ARROGANTLY reclaimed their colonies in Asia and North Africa, and lo and behold they paid a HUGE price for doing so.....The vietnamese were a french colony until 1940 when the Nazis conquered France, and then the JAPANESE marched right in and took over Vietnam (this was over a year BEFORE pearl Harbor mind you so the US did nothing but protest.)   The vietnamese people saw one imperial power (france) replaced by a more Brutal one (the JAPS).   Ho chi Minh and Vo Giap started a resistance, with the help of the ALLIES (usa & britain) against the JAPS, so when the JAPS were defeated in 1945 the vietnamese SHOULD have been granted independence.     But the FROGS were not having any of it....So Ho Chi Minh & company sought help from the Communists, Russia and China.   Given the politics of the period, the USA was compelled to support its ally (France) even though up until 1954 the US urged the french to GRADUALLY withdraw like the British were doing all over the world from its former colonies.When the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was waged in 1954 and the Frogs defeated by a determined and clever enemy (ho chi minh and Giap) ....while the battle was being waged, Negotiations had already begun in GENEVA to end this conflict (known at the time as the FIRST INDO-CHINA WAR).    The defeat at Dien Bien Phu and subsequent smaller victories gave the vietnamese more negotiating power, and an accord was reached that DIVIDED the country into two spheres, north & south, just as had happened a YEAR earlier in KOREA.  The Danger now existed that the SOVIETS would have unfettered access to that area of the world (where they at the time HAD no access)......The North immediately embraced a Soviet Style Communist regime.Eisenhower, under pressure from his own party's hard line anti-communist faction who subscribed to the DOMINO theory, recognized that unless the USA openly supported the South Vietnamese "Democracy", it was only a matter of time before the more Heavily armed North conquered them.  Among the problems facing them was the fact that when the country was divided, many former Anti french & Anti Jap guerillas who had been fighting for a independent WHOLE vietnam were "TRAPPED" in the south and thus became the VIET CONG.     ANother problem that never really went away was this:   For reasons still unclear, the South Vietnamese government was RIFE with corruption, corrupt and weak leaders......Eisenhower (and his vice president, none other than RICHARD M. NIXON) concoted a strategy to support the South Vietnamese with lots of "Advisers" and financial support, which congress (both parties) approved in a slowly escalating fashion from 1955 through 1961 when Kennedy took over.  Thus, KENNEDY  INHERITED (lol) a this mess, and yes, he did agree during his 1000 days in office to increase further the number of "advisers" in the South.   But the CORRUPTION within the South Vietnamese government was EXTREME, and things came to a head in 1964 when, in a series of incidents and deteriorating circumstances, Lyndon Johnson, under pressure from his hawkish military advisers,  unleashed full scale US Military involvement.    The rest they say is history.....So its not at all a clearcut picture, nor does it even apply to today's screwed up mess.Also, most important, it solves NOTHING to try and justify or excuse mistaken or stupid policies, decisions or actions by TODAY's leaders (of any party) by trying to look back to history and say "SEE!"  ......    My dad, who flew over 50 combat missions in Vietnam as the crew chief on a C-130 (coming in low & slow dropping supplies to besieged marines and subjecting himself and his plane to withering ground fire), and who is a bald faced flag hugging republican today, is adamant that GW Bush and his cowardly neocon chorus (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al) were total f-ing idiots the way the entire IRaq campaign was conceived, justified and waged.....so is his entire VFW Lodge......they have a picture of GW Bush standing on the Carrier in the summer of 2003 with the sign MISSION ACCOMPLISHED emblazoned on it, right next to a Picture of the Vietnam War memorial ....the message is this :  Politicians who themselves DO NOT go off to fight in wars nor have any personal stake in the fighting  NEVER EVER LEARN.Now before anyone out there starts sniveling that they just received another "HISTORY LESSON", try actually thinking about it first and construct something relevant, intelligent and Cogent in response.   Don't blame me for having the patience and ability to read some books and actually comprehend and assimilate what I just read.

[notes1]

you had better be careful, one of these days you are going to hurt yourself, patting yourself on the back.

[DaBurglar]

you had better be careful, one of these days you are going to hurt yourself, patting yourself on the back.
what the hell???You are ridiculous you know that???    WHy did you HAVE to say that, HUH?   You really cannot construct a reply that actually engages on the topic?   Or is this your way of saying I am in fact RIGHT and you have nothing to add or subtract?Let me make this easy for you since your "heart" is obviously full of anger, resentment and other things I wont mention:I would much rather have spent my youth and early adulthood running around raising hell and screwing around etc etc etc.    I could not however and my dad sat me down one day when I was about 10 and said this (and keep in mind My dad is a Flag waving vietnam veteran Republican who you'd probably love to shoot the **** with if you were unaware he was in fact MY DAD!):"Son, you are never going to play ball, you are never going to be able to drive a truck for a living or dig ditches or build houses like your uncles;  you will NEVER be able to serve in the Military like I did.  You are going to have to use this (points to my head) to make it in life.....YOU HAVE TO.  You don't have a choice.....do you understand? (I nodded in a intimidated kind of way).     If you do well in school you should be able to find yourself a nice way to make a living, and you should have a lot of options....I will help you do this as long as I live and as long as you apply yourself and don't screw around....and also, DO NOT feel sorry for yourself or be full of self pity.    Believe it or not son, you have it MADE compared to most people in this world..."Now again, I was about 10, and subsequently for several years after that until I graduated HIGH SCHOOL he reinforced this point with me whenever my immaturity got the better of me and caused me to let a grade or two slip.....I still managed to get into Harvard despite missing over a YEAR of my four years in High School (I got by with tutors and teaching MYSELF!)SO all you do, with this STUPID absurd disdain for "Elitist" "progressive" "intellectual"  insults and mockery of yours is show just how simple and IGNORANT you really are.I take no pleasure in pointing this out, but g'damn, you are totally ridiculous with these statements you make.edited to add:  If I had not gone to an "ELITE" school and become an "ELITE" individual (YOUR IDIOTIC LABELS by the way), I would be sitting at home in an apartment paid for by people LIKE YOU, in a wheelchair or scooter paid for BY YOU, eating food paid by YOU, wearing 3000 dollar hearing aids paid for BY YOU  etc...........instead everything I have or have accomplished, with the exception of the $40K in financial aid I received to actually earn my "ELITE" degree, is mine and mine alone.     I have paid it all back 10 times over (or more probably)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I am not terrified of the terrorists; i.e., I am not,
myself, terrorized. Rather, I am terrified of the terrorized; terrified
of the bovine masses who are so easily manipulated by terrorists,
governments, and the terror-amplifying media into allowing our country to slip toward totalitarianism and total war!

[notes1]

   Don't blame me for having the patience and ability to read some books and actually comprehend and assimilate what I just read.


the statement above prompted the pat on the back comment. pompous, egotistical.

two dems escalated the NAM war and a rep ended it. that is what people need to know.

[DaBurglar]

[QUOTE=DaBurglar]

   Don't blame me for having the patience and ability to read some books and actually comprehend and assimilate what I just read.


the statement above prompted the pat on the back comment. pompous, egotistical.

two dems escalated the NAM war and a rep ended it. that is what people need to know.[/QUOTE]but you DO "Blame me" for being informed, intelligent and being able to poke hole sin these simplistic, ERRONEOUS ideas that people (not just yOU per se) put forth!   Seriously, Your repeated (REPEATED) disdain and insults about some mythical "Liberal ELITE" is what My so-called Egotistical line is in response to.......I repeatedly deny being Liberal by the way (as you define liberal), and my purpose above in outlining my life was to show you that I was born of working middle class parents and born with circumstances I DID NOT ASK FOR (who would?) so this attempt by you paint me as ELITE is BS.I am not going to apologize for being "Smart"......you remind me of the kids in High school who would give me the STINK eye for blowing the BELL curve out of the water whenever a Bell curve waqs used to grade everyone.   TOO BAD!!!    I did not have a choice!    Like I said, if I could, I'd probably be a beer guzzling, lower middle class TRUMP Republican if I was not afflicted with Osteogenesis Imperfecta.Why can't you understand that, Yes, I do possess a certain amount of PRIDE in what I have accomplished and where I come from (especially in light of how I COULD have ended up!)        More than you or most people, I UNDERSTAND that A LOT of people are born into circumstances that they did not ask for and have NO control over.....sure there is MUCH we can do to better ourselves and take "RESPONSIBILITY" for our destiny, but it is NOT foolproof or guaranteed, NOT AT ALL, that is someone simply "WORKS HARD and sacrifices"  that eventually ALL will be well!   That is absurd and simplistic and CALLOUS to boot.      MANY people need at least a small helping hand, and if it is GIVEN fairly, promptly and without strings or guilt attached, MOST people will be able to improve their lot and pay it back at least even fold if not more so.   I know this  from MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and from observing MANY MANY other people I met in similar circumstances who also were able to "make it in life"  

[notes1]

I am not going to apologize for being "Smart"......  

repeat; pompous, egotistical.

[DaBurglar]

two dems escalated the NAM war and a rep ended it. that is what people need to know.Ok, why do people "NEED"  to know this (even though it is not accurate)?????Seriously, why, at this point do people N E E D to know about Vietnam?   I am sincerely asking.......I agree with you and would rejoice if people were to "learn about vietnam and draw some healthy conclusions about it concerning how easily wars can become out of control; how easily wars can become disasters if the strategy and political goals are NOT clearly defined and focused upon;  how easily a country can TURN on its own if a Government does not clearly and honestly deal with its citizens in prosecuting such a war;  how wrong it is for a country to TURN on its soldiers (like my DAD experienced) during the war, how immoral that is to ignore and piss on its veterans!See there are a SLEW of lessons to be learned (or re-learned) regarding vietnam, and sadly we are seeing many of them replayed out in a BAD awful way with the stupid policies and decisions made during the BUSH II / CHENY admin, and sadly, Obama has not improved upon them in a adequate manner (although he has tried.....TRIED  not to make the SAME mistakes all over again.)The Vietnam war, AGAIN, was the result of the early dynamics of the Cold War playing out the way that they did, and it was EISENHOWER (one of my FAVORITE presidents and one of the BEST we ever had)  who started the US phase of involving and then OWNING the struggle.....the "two Democrats" you refer to, Kennedy and LBJ did indeed  ESCALATE things, especially LBJ (obviously).......and SORRY, but classifying and portraying RIchard M. Nixon (and his SEC 0' STate  Kissinger, the real brains behind the eventual "peace accords") as some kind of "peace maker"  is totally misleading.Nixon was COMPELLED to campaign in 1968 on a platform of ENDING the war......but so was EVERY other candidate in EVERY other party (recall that in 1968 their was a 3-way election and a big reason Nixon won is that MANY Southern Democrats, known as "DIXIECRATS" at that time, who flat out hated and opposed the Civil right movement and were card carrying segreagationist racists, voted for George Wallace and Curtis "Bomb em' Bomb em' & Bomb em' some more"  LEMAY)        IF you then examine Nixon's conduct of the war, while it is true a type of PEace was eventually brokered, it took nearly 5 years and resulted in almost 40% of the TOTAL casualties of the entire war taking place during Nixon's handling of the war!!And we all know that, because of watergate, in late 1974 when the North Vietnamese totally VIOLATED the "PEACE treaty" Nixon and Kissinger implemented and resumed invasion of the South, the Ford administrations was UNABLE to politically validate the Promise that Nixon made to "Bring back the bombers" if the North invaded again.   Hence in APril 1975  North Vietnam WON!What people do need......NEED to know, sir is that little tidbit I included about the role the RACIST (BLATANTLY RACIST) campaign of George Wallace played in bringing Nixon to Power!That is something people today in your party ( I am not saying YOU PERSONALLY)  want to forget and hide, that all these current SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS are the direct offspring, or evolution, of the previous DIXIECRATS!   the former Democrats from the south who were Democrats as a result of the late 1870s thru the 1950s   when Reconstruction and the subsequent Racial Unrest with all the Lynchings (fact) and the rise and (thankfully) fall of the KKK took place.......Abe Lincoln was A republican so it happened that all the Southern states who were readmitted to the UNION after the civil war saw all their politicians become DEMOCRATS.

[DaBurglar]

[QUOTE=DaBurglar]
I am not going to apologize for being "Smart"......  

repeat; pompous, egotistical. [/QUOTE]fine, your are totally entitled to think and feel that.    I have no control over what you feel, I am just responding to your baseless and false labeling and criticism of me and the way I think......So i guess that is all you have, huh?I think we are done here.   I think once Trump is TROUNCED the republican party will fracture into several pieces......the truly awful thing is that people Like you, come this November will HAVE to check off TRUMP because, what is the alternative you have left yourselves?You are thus going to have to either accept Shrillary, or consciously put into the hands of a egotistical ignorant blowhard the codes of the Nuclear Football.       I'm building a Bomb shelter....it's gonna be Huuuuuuuuge.

[Tedlark]

Your bombshelter better be big, otherwise there wouldn't be enough room in there for both; your ego and your library. Wikipedia be damned.....we've got DaBurglarpedia.