Bush LIED and here is the proof!

[whatthefunk]

Your sentence betrays the thinking of the people of the LEFT aside from YOU.....

YOU.......

YOU...........should not be "afraid" to get information from "the other side"?

The lefties, in the U.S., are the ones who BRAY to the HEAVENS about having access to ALL information, but....

Right here in THIS THREAD......

there were several posts that averred that information from "the other side" was....worthless.....

so...BRAVO TO YOU ....Gorobereo.....bravo to you.......who view BOTH sides and THEN make an informed decision......

instead of listening to only one side because "it is the correct side".....as both "sides" in the U.S. are so PROUD to spew.

Just curious...how do you know that people from the left dont read stuff from the right? Do you think people from the right are any better?

Edit:
Also, you have no idea how tiring it is to constantly here Republicans refer to Democrats as "elites." Please provide some sort of evidence to show me that they are in fact "elites."

[HalationEffect]

From the perspective of a great deal of the rest of the world, what the US calls 'left', they think of as being in the centre... what the US calls 'right', they think of as being just a hair shy of fascism.

Personally, when Shakespeare said "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers", I think he should have carried on to say "And secondly, the politicians".

[Goeroeboeroe]

Eh, I think I'm absolutely no exception in trying to be a bit informed from different points of view. I am more surprised when I see on a lot of political forums a lot of people from the US don't do that. (Actually I saw that a lot, because I'm not politically active anymore.) You have that all over the world, but I think in the US polarization is stronger than in a lot of other countries. Of the western world, you can't compare US or Netherlands with a county like Syria.
(Of course a lot of right winged people also are well informed. Again: this kind of things has nothing to do with left or right.)

And the use all of the time of the word 'elite' looks a bit strange to me too. Do you mean every liberal is rich? Do you mean every liberal has a very high education? Do you mean every liberal has a big house? Do you mean every liberal owns a big company with lots of employees?
I guess it may be all of that, and maybe you're a little jealous?


OT: Just after my question I found the smilies. Scroll completely down and click on the word Smilies in 'Smilies are ON'. There's a list of codes. Only in advanced mode. Hmmm, I think it's not just because I'm stupid I didn't find this...

[woodsmoke]

LOL
Hmmmm the term elite!

NOoooo I do not consider them to BE elites, but to THINK that they are elites!

Well, you should spend several years in "academia", especially "high academia".

They DEFINITELY think that they are elite, in all senses of the word, except for HAVING large amounts of money. In the sciences they get to SPEND large amounts of money! lol

And survey after survey has shown that "academia" (that is professors) are to a large extent "liberal" and vote "Democratic".

And, since they are sooooooooooo educated that means, to them, that they are superior to the "less educated".

I used to deal with people like this on a day to day basis, but when a new technology campus opened up I was asked if I wanted to go there and jumped at the opportunity. In the sciences it is not your opinion of yourself but whether you can do the job.

******************
The use of the terms "flyover country" for anywhere between east and west coast, or even more provincially, anywhere outside Wash D.C.

The term means that people in the midwest are merely worth "looking down upon" while flying over them.

to quote:

Any boring and unremarkable state that has to be flown over to get to interesting states such as California and New York. Typical fly-over states are Montana, Oklahoma, Indiana, etc.

Flyover country refers to the part of the country where the "elite fail to meet". They sit in their comfy first class seats or in their Gulfstreams and fly from Left Coast to Right Coast and back again. They claim to know all about us in our suburban and Midwestern dreariness where we all lust after our neighbors' daughters because of the unavoidable ennui of our mundane lives.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...fly-over+state

See also Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyover_country

*********************

The use of the term "astroturf".....that anyone who is "conservative" is "astroturf", well......one ususally WALKS on astroturf.

So we asked Speaker Pelosi — perjorative dot dot dot — if she thought that those protests were a sign of genuine grass roots opposition to the Obama health care plan.

“I think they’re Astroturf,” Pelosi said Tuesday. “You be the judge.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election...are-astroturf/

Pelosi's use of the term has moved beyond the original definition by Bentsen which was loosely used to term the "mountains of mail" that congress people got on topics that were generated by special interest groups.

What is curious is that it is ok for the "lefties" to use the method but when it is used ON them they resent it.

However, it is plain that Pelosi was referring to the "people" that were at the town hall meetings protesting the healthcare law.

Listing of "astroturf" organizations at SourceWatch:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Astroturf

Notice that Bentsen was a Democrat, that is not to be derogatory to the man, who always struck me as an "uninteresting" fellow but one that also did a good job at what he tried.

But, the point is that the term arose from "the left" and applies, mainly, now "to the right".

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...=Lloyd_Bentsen

anyway.... the above should be sufficient to the point.

And the old wheeze that people like Rush Limbaugh do the same thing won't work in this instance.

The speaker of the house, who represents the WHOLE country should not be calling people perjorative names.

Just as Pres. Obama should not say that people who disagree with him cling to their guns and Bibles because they are clueless.

People can malign GWB as much as they want but he didn't call people names or describe them perjoratively in public.

Now, yes, he probably did in private but, then so did Kennedy.

ASIDE:

I volunteered no less than four times to have an "install party" for Mandriva. In all cases I was totally ignored. They kept sending the invitation to me, and I kept replying but.....no go...

For the first and second volunteerings, I sent:
a) the place, approved by the admin
b) the agenda
c) layout of how it would be done physically and that I had one person to assist.

I then sent to Mandriva, photos of the install parties, listings of the installs and the equipment whereupon the OS was installed, and the couple of failures also.

I receive NO reply and the Mandriva people actually ballyhooed an install party in France that was SMALLER than mine.

So..... The elites (both Dem and Repub, but mostly Dem) of the U.S. might consider that it might be that people in other countries consider ALL of the U.S. to be flyover country and astroturf.

woodactaullywearabuzzhaircutsometimessoImightactua llyappeartobeastroturf smoke

[HalationEffect]

The use of the term "astroturf".....that anyone who is "conservative" is "astroturf", well......one ususally WALKS on astroturf.

I think you may have misunderstood the meaning of the term astroturf in this particular context. It's a play on words really, used when it is suspected that what appears to be a grassroots movement has in fact been manufactured (i.e. faked). Because astroturf is fake grass, a fake grassroots movement is often referred to as astroturfing.

[Qqmike]

Speaking of name-calling, your excessive use of the word "elite" to describe liberals fits right there ...
"NOoooo I do not consider them to BE elites, but to THINK that they are elites! Well, you should spend several years in "academia", especially "high academia". They DEFINITELY think that they are elite, in all senses of the word ... And survey after survey has shown that "academia" (that is professors) are to a large extent "liberal" and vote "Democratic". And, since they are sooooooooooo educated that means, to them, that they are superior to the "less educated". I used to deal with people like this on a day to day basis ..."


Sounds like you might have a personal problem, Woody.

[Goeroeboeroe]

I've spend several years in a political environment. Not too much difference, I guess. Every 'higher' politician thinks he or she is the best, otherwise he/she wouldn't have a high position.

It's a bit strange for me to react on things like 'liberals' etc, because that's typical US word. But this is an international forum, so...
('Liberaal' means here at the moment more or less 'right'. It used to be more for personal freedom, but nowadays 'liberaal' means mainly translating every value in economical terms.)

But I think you might look a bit too much at every liberal behaving like belonging to an elite. Of course I don't live in the US, so there will be differences.
It's now a bit different, but I know some years ago conservative professors here had a very hard time too. But it's the other way around too. When I was at school, I got a 0 (that's the lowest mark (rate? school rating?) you can get here, on a scale from 0 to 10) because I was against apartheid and the teacher was a big fan of apartheid.

I have been political active on the far left, and I know there are people there that are as bad as Stalin or Mao. But I still think that has not so much to do with left or right, but more with character etc. On the right you have exactly the same eh, I 'm probably not allowed to use the word that comes up....And you have some very nice people there too.
I remember being active in The Hague there was a left alderman that even didn't want to speak with ordinary people. Ha, reading it over: that was really somebody behaving like the worst kind of an elitist regent. (We spoke to him once, more or less raided him, dressed up as Santa Claus and his servant, with photographers from the paper present, so he couldn't refuse a talk. Because it's absolutely not done to refuse Santa Claus something.)
And there was a very conservative alderman you could have very good conversations with. We disagreed about everything, but he was fair en didn't lie, and when he promised something he kept his promise.

That's maybe a bit what I mean with that polarization. You talk about elites and liberal etc. like everybody behaves that way. How do you ever want to solve problems, if people look at each other that way?
We have a political system here that - I think - almost every foreigner thinks is totally crazy. In September there are national elections, and 24 parties will join the election. At least (probably more) ten parties will get seats in Parliament. It's impossible for any single party to form a government. So they HAVE to talk with each other and make compromises. Sometimes that's very difficult, but the good side is there are talks between (almost) all parties. And since they have to form a government with more parties, they have to respect each other more or less.

Surely there must have been some nice liberal students? But the way you write about elites etc. makes it look like you think everybody is that way. At least in my eyes.

I agree with you the Speaker of the House (or whatever it's exactly called) shouldn't say that kind of things. But that's the kind of polarization that keeps surprising me. I think, I'm not sure, but I think the chairman of the Parliament here had to resign if she said a thing like that. (It's a she, but I'm not sure 'chairwoman' is an existing word.)

We have no flyover country here. Mainly because there's not much to fly over. I live in Amsterdam, but was not born here. I really had to get used to the amount of 'real' Amsterdam people that believe they are smarter, more educated, etc. than people in the 'province'. Unbelievable. Like there's something in the water here that makes your brain work better. Ah well, maybe there is, I don't have too much trust in the municipality... I lived all over Holland, but this feeling of superiority is typically Amsterdam. Of course not all inhabitants behave like that.

[GreyGeek]

Woodsmoke knew what "astroturf" means, he was just tweaking the concept.

"Fly-over" country has a definite meaning here in Nebraska. The Nebraska Air National Guard used to be a base for F16 fighters, but a decade ago they moved the fighters out and put in a KC-135 tanker unit. Now, military and government planes flying between the East and West coasts don't have to land anymore. If they landed and came to a full stop they'd have to pay a fee per plane, plus take all the that time having a fuel tanker drive over to the plane and refuel it, taxing out and go through ground and tower clearance, etc..., to say nothing of the fuel burned taking off and climbing to altitude.

Now, a KC-135 takes off and meets them in the air, sometimes several during the KC-135 loitering period, and they hardly have to slow down or change altitude. Fly-over indeed.

[whatthefunk]

This makes no sense whatsoever. Its like having a conversation with a TV.

[SteveRiley]

Hey, Woody? We have a fair number of liberal/progressive folk on this here fine forum. However, I can't recall anyone exhibiting what I suspect you might consider to be an "elitist" attitude. I don't think you intend to lump fellow forum members into such an overbroad, derogatory accusation, do you? Also, I can't recall anyone denigrating or dismissing the land between the coasts -- except for yourself, repeatedly. I don't think this what you want us to believe about most of America, is it?

[Qqmike]

Good post, SR. For the record (WHAT record!), and to illustrate one point I believe you are making ... I've lived proudly in New Mexico, Illinois, Indiana; my grandparents on one side were Czechoslovakian farmers near Crete, Nebraska, and g-parents on the other side were German farmers in southern Illinois. As for Woody's elitist hang-up (and that's what it is), I've been everything from a common laborer on construction (several jobs) to a PhD university professor to a woodworker, stone cutter, writer, artist, consultant, car salesman, grill cook, ... What the h* is an elitist! When it comes to social issues, I'm liberal as hell for one simple reason: Each of us humans has every right to be here (on Earth, in USA, wherever) on an equal basis (at least the very basics: enough food, shelter, clothing, clean water, and reasonable level of health services). This isn't rocket surgery (as one twisted saying goes). It's simple.

[woodsmoke]

QQmike and SR......

SPOT ON!!!!

and GG......yep, I was on one of those tankers when I was dropped into the "@#$%" ...wonderful ships....I NEVER thought I would do it....but sometimes when an old Chief straps his own belt onto you .......you gotta walk the walk instead of just talking.....

and QQ

Sounds like you might have a personal problem, Woody.

LOL.... QQ you REALLY ARE the most PERSPICACIOUS ONE aren't you!!! lol

The LAST time that somebody caught my skirts showing was at a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Show to which I was....DRAGGED (PUN....NOT!!! ) by my lesbian friend huigginsashleyhuggins!!! lol....

and NO i did NOT stand up by myself and sing the straight guy! lol..

Although most guys would say that I'm good enough looking to pull it off!!! lol

guys....did I actually post.....guys......?? LOL

woodsalsolovesMontyPythonsmoke