Friday, June 6, 2014

No, This Doesn't Make Sense to Me.

Some of Sgt. Bergdahl's hometown folks are confused--isn't having him home a big deal?  Why have so many people changed their minds so suddenly?  And they might well ask, does this seem like Swiftboating?

And if one reads conservative blogs, it seems like there are some people just shocked that anyone would suggest any such a thing. Oh, and Chris Matthews.

But as for me, I'm just saying when I see what looks like strategy, I think--"Huh, could this be strategy?" Yes, I acknowledge people he served with might feel some kind of way about whetever dodgy circumstances he got captured under. But opinions aren't facts. Not even if really lazy media personalities want to use opinion polls as their basis for deciding whether this POW exchange was the right thing to do.

I just don't understand why this is being politicized so much.

7 comments:

Grung_e_Gene said...

Dishonorable Conseravtives were for Sgt Bergdahl's release before they were against it.

Numerous sites and bloggers have captured the right-wing hypocrisy surrounding Bergdahl's release.

It's just another highlight that conservatives will sh*t upon any veteran or active duty service member who does not espouse the right-wing agenda. Because "The Troops" are jut pawns to conservatives to be used and discarded.

Anonymous said...

Hi Vixen,
this is like finding a cube in the middle of the desert. Whatever direction you approach it from, it looks the same. A total, unmitigated hairball.

The hairball aspects are grossly exaggerated by the political, ideological biases that initially rushed into the fray like compasses on the left and right pointing at true north.

War is hell, and today part of that hell is when your experience somehow gets co-opted by left-right politics. George Washington did not want political parties to be established because he felt people could get more loyal to their party than to the country.

Today almost every issue is hyper-confused because of ideological biases.

Ideology is the new fundamentalism.

As far as Bergdahl is concerned, a lot depends on whether he is tried by the civilian system or the military system. To the best of my knowledge, the UCMJ does not have a contingency that insists you are innocent until proven guilty. It's more like you have a chance of proving your innocence.

Ideology as opposed to principle is becoming a true evil in our world, just as other forms of fundamentalism are. And you can see this factor in action alive and well in the Bergdahl case.

--Formerly Amherst

Yastreblyansky said...

"I just don't understand why this is being politicized so much."

I think it's because that's what they've got: It's always the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach, which means everything in the pot might be worth trying. You go to propaganda with the spaghetti you have, not with the spaghetti you might wish you had. Obviously they'd prefer to find Obama "in bed with a live boy or a dead girl" as the saying goes, or taking secret orders from the Jesuits or the Fourth International, or bribes from Goldman Sachs, but it's obviously not going to happen. So they'll just keep trying things out. Benghazi? There must have been something wrong with it! And so on.

Vixen Strangely said...

Yeah, ideology is a big tide-turner in these public opinion things, and I get the impulse for people to insist on Obama's having gotten something wrong, but this just seems more overtly whiplash-y a response than usual; folks went from wearing "Bring Bowe Home" bracelets to "Burn the Witch" in minutes. And regardless, we'd have to have him is US custody to fully investigate anyway.

Agreed--a hairball.

Anonymous said...

Hi Vixen,
apparently the president did something illegal. The question is whether it was wrong. It may be illegal but humanitarian, or it may be wrong. That seems to be the issue.

I've noticed that the right wing ideologists always think that Obama is wrong in every case, and the left wing ideologists think that Obama is right in every case. Both of these positions are foolish.

Everyone talks about getting politics out of the system, but with the ideological biases being anchored and codified by political parties, I do not see how politics can be extracted.

Ultimately the result is people pulling out all the stops in the hopes of a grade C level solution. Any time in Washington people hit a C, it's a very good day. However, this is the system we have, and it does have virtues if someone could get it to work effectively.

--Formerly Amherst

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

apparently the president did something illegal

No.

What is foolish is assuming that the left and the right are equally wrong, and therefore the truth, proper course of action, etc., etc. lies right there in the middle. This is Broderism. And it's responsible for our problems, not an answer for them.

I've noticed that the right wing ideologists always think that Obama is wrong in every case, and the left wing ideologists think that Obama is right in every case. Both of these positions are foolish.

No.

Obama is not "left wing" in any way. He's a center-right DNC corporatist. If he happened to be a white Republican, the goopers would be clamoring to have his likeness hammered into Mount Rushmore instead of Ronnie Raygun's.
~



Anonymous said...

Actually, my view is that the left and right in their goal of manipulating public opinion create two competing mythologies that have greater and lesser degrees of distance from the actual facts.

Then the useful idiots help continue to spin these mythologies as if they actually pertain to something real.

My preference would be the Washington model of having Democratic and Republican parties if we wished, but those parties would have no greater or lesser influence than any other lobbying group. Hopefully, people would weigh in on the basis of what they believed and not their party's spin.

I do agree that a kind of corporazione has some relation to Obama's Democrat/big-business policies.

Perhaps a fulfillment would be an economia politica e corporativa.

A lot of people do not realize that big business and government are partners. Government places heavy regulations and taxation on businesses. As a consequence, only the large corporations have sufficient funds and international flexibility to survive and still make profits.

Smaller businesses do not have the capital and credit to negotiate the taxation and regulation, and therefore are driven out of business, leaving the field to the government/big-business relationship.

--Formerly Amherst

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